


Leporidae

by PaP



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: A soft-spoken gay man with a painful past finds purpose again, A tame Braixen encounters a wild Lopunny and contemplates life beyond her loving father figure, Affection, Alternate Universe, Animal Instincts, Animal Metaphors, Desire, Domestication, Dubious Ethics, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Baggage, Environmentalism, Extinction, F/F, Falling In Love, Fear of Death, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Free Will, Gay Male Character, Home, Hunters & Hunting, Interspecies Romance, Intimacy, Introspection, Isolation, Language Barrier, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Pokémon, Loneliness, Loyalty, Lust, M/M, Molestation, Mythology References, Nature Versus Nurture, Not Canon Compliant, Not Pokephilia, Original Pokemon Region, Poaching, Pokemon/Pokemon Relationship(s), Predator/Prey, Realistic Pokemon, References to Depression, References to Illness, Religion, Romance, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Discovery, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Sentient Pokemon, Sexuality, Wilderness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:01:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24560479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaP/pseuds/PaP
Summary: Hopeful to ride out the throes of this grief, Jason flees to the wilderness with his beloved Braixen, only for another wounded man to fall against his breast. Meanwhile, she drags her nose over the scent still imprinted in the earth, lusting after the Lopunny who left that paw print behind.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Tairenar | Braixen/Mimilop | Lopunny
Comments: 19
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

“Oh.”

If his younger sister was disappointed by his understated reaction to having her turn up barely announced, as usual, with a living, breathing creature in her arms, she chose to pretend otherwise and grinned the entire journey from the front door to the couch, without saying a word after the initial hello.

He shut the door, eventually, since that vacant stare into the neighbourhood beyond proved unhelpful, then moved to fetch two beers from the fridge.

She occupied herself by fussing with the pointed ears and tiny paws, sharp teeth nibbling affectionately at her hands.

Thankful that he’d restocked, he returned to find her seated, cushions pushed aside, cradling the tiny, furry thing in her lap with instinctive motherliness commanding her fingers, it would seem, though his sister had never shown motherly inclinations for very long, because the cute and conveniently sized stages of growth would eventually come to their end.

She looked up and the creature stopped playing to look, too.

He balked, his powerful frame sagging with age and neglect in some places.

Two sets of eyes, watching him.

"What do you think?"

He hummed his thought, the sound resonating huskily in his throat. Truly, he felt sorry to see she’d apparently adopted another, all tragedies considered, but he didn't have the hardness of heart to say that to his sister. "Cute."

"Just the cutest!"

"Mmhm."

"Don't just stand there, Jason. Come and say hi."

He took a step closer, beers suspended in large hands, dangling before his hips, his belt buckle a dull grey that used to be shiny, until all that shine got scuffed away.

“Gonna have to get you a little collar, my darling. Or maybe a harness? So we can take you for walkies, mmyes, so you won't scamper off and get lost.”

He placed his sister's beer on a cork coaster, struck by those ruby eyes staring up at him from within the tumbling locks of her hair, cascading from her bowed shoulders like a curtain of a stage dedicated to the adorable glory of the vulpine creature.

"And we'll take you to the park. You'll make friends and you'll make a nuisance of yourself, won't you, girl?"

Little nose, twitching, eyes round and unafraid, roved between the human faces suspended above.

“Won’t that be nice, my good girl?”

“Is that a…?” He awkwardly stood in place, searching for the name. “Um…”

“Fennekin.”

“Oh. Right.”

"She's a fiery girl, aren't you, my pretty girl?"

The Fennekin remained silent, expression one of cautious curiosity.

"And the nice man said you're clever, clean and easy to train. And that you'll be so pretty when you're evolved and you'll love to perform."

The Fennekin frowned at that word - perform - but the expression was so subtle, so brief, that it seemed almost immediately forgotten.

"Wow, Sam." Jason kept his tone supportive even as his green eyes avoided his sister's. "Got a real winner, here." He was unsure of how the Fennekin would handle being part of a household that included an old and very angry Persian. But this was only one concern on his mind. There were others. The gnawing others.

"I know! I knew it the moment our eyes met."

His guilt only cemented itself.

The Fennekin had her paws braced on his sister’s cradling arm, allowing that vulpine head to peer out from between the tumbling tresses of hair, and she leant further forward, stretching her slender neck, trying to study the big man beyond, ruby eyes fixating on his greying beard in particular, fascination increasing with distance.

“Ah.”

“Well, sit and say hi already, silly!”

He carefully moved past, taking the vacant spot alongside, those fiery eyes following, intelligent and feline. He set his own beer down. Wondered if she could grow to handle that Persian, after all.

“Fennekin, this is Jason. Say hi, Jason.”

“Hello,” he said in obedience, his deep tone directed at the Fennekin specifically for the first time.

She tilted her head, aware she was being spoken to, but she was far more intrigued by the beard that was doing the talking.

“Aw! Say something else, she likes you!”

“So… I’m Jason.”

"And I'm Sam."

“I’m her big brother.”

“I take care of him.”

“Mmhm.”

Tilting again and again, the Fennekin studied the veiled movements of his jaw, ears turned to his deep, soft voice, tail swaying back and forth absentmindedly.

"Okay, clearly she prefers you."

Jason's answering smile was tired and gentle as he leant over Sam's slender shoulder.

“You should feel her fur! It’s so soft and warm.”

The Fennekin flattened her ears beneath the indulgent pat on her head, enduring it a while before turning to look curiously up into the face of the woman, indeed, not quite as impressed.

“You’re so clever, aren’t you? Listening to every word.”

A slow blink.

Reaching, he offered a thickset, calloused finger, wiggling it enticingly.

Those eyes darted again, refocusing on wherever his finger wavered, evidently a predatory gaze designed to track small, erratic prey in the shadowy places where such weakness may hide.

“If she bites you, it’ll be your fault, Jason.”

“That’s okay, Sam.”

The Fennekin was evidently too intelligent to mistake his finger for food, leaning again in the cradle of her captor’s embrace for a cautious sniff, tail wagging faster at the proximity and sensory input.

Unthinkingly, he pressed his finger gently to her dainty little nose, astounded by the heat of the tiny breaths from flared nostrils, as if a great inferno was kept within such a frail form.

Detecting the residue of cigarettes on his skin, the delicate vulpine snout wrinkled, not out of distaste, but heightened interest.

“Hi, Fennekin,” he murmured, gravelly and fond, finger withdrawing.

She followed, licked his fingertip once before letting him go, then sat back, regarding his beard again.

His smile deepened, reaching his green eyes, the lines of age at their corners filling with shadows.

"Well, that settles it, then."

"Settles what?"

"You're a dad, now."

"Huh?"

“Here.” 

The Fennekin suddenly rose, apparently just as surprised by her predicament, legs dangling and expression faintly disgruntled as she was hoisted from one lap to be neatly deposited into another, a place filled with different scents and textures, the indicators of another human being she’d only just met.

“Oh!”

The Fennekin recovered fast, given far more room on this lap to explore, turning and sniffing about denim-clad legs, following a trail of coffee stains down to the knee.

"Sam?" asked Jason, higher pitched than usual, quickly shielding the Fennekin from an unintentional fall with a large hand, as she'd almost strayed too far.

"She's yours."

"But... I don't..."

"You'll be fine."

Green eyes met their twins.

"You need the company, sweetheart."

He grunted when the Fennekin suddenly turned and clambered against his belly, attempting to climb her way up to his beard, claws catching on his shirt, missing a few buttons already.

Sam rested her head against her brother's and pecked his cheek, scratchy against her soft, pale lips, then withdrew. "She'll look after you."

"When I can't," went unsaid. Then, "When I'm gone," like a silent scream, echoing in their heads.

Jason understood what this meant and felt a stone of sadness add itself to the pile of stones already inside, cold and hard and heavy.

The Fennekin nuzzled at his beard from below, tail a fluffy blur, like a brush dipped in paint and poised between the airy fingers of a careless artist, probably quite drunk.

And he felt strangely grateful, for this simple attention, craning his neck to peer down into those ruby eyes, gazing eagerly back, trusting him.

“You'll love my big brother and snuggle him and protect him. Isn’t that right, sweetie?”

The Fennekin made a growling sound, digging into the collar of his shirt, ticklish.

He squirmed. "Sam..."

"Don't argue, Jason. Anyway, can you really say no to that?”

"I..." He wanted to be angry or at least frustrated with his sister’s presumptuous, impulsive attitude to his grief. "No." But he knew what she meant, what she intended to do, before she'd go.

Sam felt Jason's large hand on hers.

He steeled his expression, then softened it, tried not to cry.

“Please?” It wasn’t her fault. She just didn't want him to be left, alone.

He sighed, deflating. "Okay."

Another kiss. "Thank you."

"Just... help me get her out, please."

"Hahaha! She's got a nose for mischief, already."

The Fennekin was determined to get inside.

* * *

“You need a name,” Jason had said hours after Sam left, leaving behind a few toys and other things she’d picked up along the way and crammed into her absurdly large handbag, and he spoke like he was mad, as he seemed to address the empty air. He was actually talking to the Fennekin from his place in a sagging rattan chair kept under the awning for evenings spent usually on his own, sipping beers, though this was evidently no longer to be the case, for however long this lifespan would permit.

As it had been some time since he’d mowed and weeded the modest lawn at the back of his modest house, she could only be seen in bursts of colour and fluff, weaving through the grass and the overflowing flowerbed, nose low, ears high, tail puffed out and trailing behind.

He had been lulled into a strange sort of tender calm, watching her wander about the garden, noting how her confidence gradually grew.

Every little yip that would occasionally rise from somewhere in the green, calling out to him for reassurance that he was still there and watching for dangers, to which he’d answer with a soothing sound of his own, embedded the claws of gratitude deeper into his chest, a recurring pang that would likely alter his relationship with his sister for as long as he would remember her.

A rustling implied that the Fennekin found a dry, dead leaf.

He pondered the problem of her name and smiled when she called for him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback would be deeply appreciated, including constructive criticism. This is my first story for this fandom and I'm a bit anxious about it.
> 
> Hoping to update with another chapter, soon. Thank you for reading.
> 
> Take care.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam was sick.

Jason kept the details to a minimum, supplying just enough information for young Amber to understand why the woman kept wilting, just enough information to understand the concept of mortality.

It applied to humans, too, no matter their superiority over seemingly all, no matter how much love one could feel for one's humans.

Amber loved Sam. Short for Samantha. Long for aunt and, in some ways, friend. In other ways, master.

Jason was dad. Just dad.

Because Sam was sick, Amber was patient, tolerating the commandments for the tiny, coordinated outfits, the coordinated movements, obliging those feminine demands that she should dance and curtsey and trot just so whilst wearing these things and being this groomed. It wasn't much to ask for, considering that their time together would be short, and there was so much love, unequal, but painful and true.

Easy-going, Jason simply wanted Amber to be healthy and happy, but Sam saw more ambitious things, encouraging the Braixen to behave like that other Braixen had on television, or in spread magazines, dancing for the delight of all on a brightly lit stage.

Amber wondered if that Braixen was happy, doing all of this, happy to perform. Or if it was the happiness felt in having her female master dance with her. What made the Braixen happy to perform? A sort of equality that Sam didn't – perhaps couldn't – grasp?

Sam was growing weak. Subtle, at first. Then, scarily sudden, as if death was catching up with her.

Perform was a word Amber knew from her Fennekin stage, when she and her siblings were cooped up adorably in a little pen for display and purchase, because the man who sold her would use that word to describe her brothers and sisters each and every time, before they were sold, disappearing one by one. Until she – the Fennekin that was a little too small, a little too prone to staring, a little too eager to nibble on fingers and scramble along clothed sleeves – was the last one to be sold.

"You're so pretty," Sam often said, and sometimes before placing a hat perfectly between Amber's ears, sometimes after readjusting a bowtie, or whilst doing up buttons of a little petticoat.

As a Braixen, Amber's intelligence grew, too, and she was told in indirect ways that natural selection or selective breeding or the deliberate design of some godly creator had somehow gifted her with the handsome, graceful traits many humans found desirable in a pet. Pet was another word she overheard and understood, unfortunately, as she made a point to learn many words, wishing sometimes that she wasn't always so eager to learn, eager to please a dying woman and this fatherly figure, one so much harder to please than the other.

Jason, though he called Amber by this name, as well as an assortment of cuter things, made it clear that overall he interpreted her to be the closest thing to a daughter he had ever known, and she knew this, too, taking pride in something greater than being a performer and a pet, because as she stood on her hind legs and held his hands in her paws, he couldn't deny how very anthropomorphic she had become.

Humanity.

"Don't do that," Sam had said, wary of the flame at the end of the stick.

Amber had obediently snuffed that flame and put her stick away.

Sam didn't patronise, as such. She was harmless, or at least, Amber thought of her aunt as such. The woman was dying and just wanted to give this one creature the special attention denied to so many others, family to be inherited by the husband who would become a widower.

Because Amber wasn't Sam's. Amber belonged to Jason, so she got special and preferential treatment.

Not that Jason would ever tell Amber such a thing, preferring to let her walk ahead, or alongside, by her choice, alone. Daughter, not property.

Perform for me, Sam had said, over and over again, sometimes saying this thing in the unspoken ways, sometimes demanding this entertainment aloud.

Amber loved Sam. Amber loved Jason, who also loved Sam. To Amber, this was her world.

He was reluctant to interfere with his sister, though there was pity in his green eyes, like hers but strangely more tortured, like a shadowy forest.

Sam's hands were so often filled with treats, and Amber's paws would reach in, taking as she was meant to, being rewarded for behaving, thus she was trained.

Until one day, Sam died.

Jason wept and Amber did the thing that was like crying, only she wasn't built to shed tears in the same way.

Sunny days in the park.

Amber kept close to Jason, holding his hand, perfectly behaved even when other lesser creatures – those things that obeyed humans, for all the fire they may have breathed or the lightning that may have guided their steps if they were permitted to run, or anything else that was dangerous – goaded her to play. Amber kept her eyes ahead, like Sam would want, and clung to Jason's hand.

There was no explanation for why humans should die.

Amber didn't want to explore that crude truth, because to do so would admit that even Jason, dad, would die someday, too, and so would Amber, but who would die first and who would be left alive, mourning like they mourned Sam?

"What're you thinking about?"

Groomed and at the ideal weight and having grown to an appropriate height despite the malnourished birth, the Braixen turned to the human, ruby eyes turning too, a moment later, and Amber tried to smile in that human way she'd been taught.

Jason was sitting on a bench in the park and he'd been comforted by her when she sat beside him, his big, hairy arm gently bent about her slender, furry frame, embracing.

She couldn't speak, of course, not like he could, though she did study his language hard and came to understand that humans were remarkable, because they spoke so many languages, came from so many places, and conquered seemingly everything they found.

As he couldn't understand her, of course, he answered vaguely whilst fussing with one of her ears. "It is a nice day today."

She rested her head on his rounded belly and gave up her perfect poise, for a moment, because he was her dad and no matter how hard Amber performed, Sam wasn't coming back.


	3. Chapter 3

“Hey, honey.”

Amber looked up without lifting her head from the nest of her folded arms, appearing handsomely pathetic, those sly ruby eyes filled with stale melancholy not befitting of a Braixen. She didn’t bother to sit upright and elegant, like a human. She didn’t feel like it.

Jason smiled shyly at her from across the small office space, leaving his computer to wheel his chair over the wooden flooring with a muscular nudge of his legs, drawing closer with a whimsical, half-hearted turn, as if for her amusement.

She was curled in on herself, occupying the scuffed seat of her own chair, legs drawn and tail encircling her body, weakly wagging at its painted tip as his hand settled between her ears.

He made a soothing noise and stroked that velvety place, her lashes fluttering in subdued pleasure.

Sunlight streamed in gently from the window, marking another quiet, unhappy day of a retired man and his sole comfort in the world.

She eventually grunted, giving weak voice to her appreciation, and he took this as his cue to speak.

“I was thinking,” he said, with a nod toward his computer from over his broad shoulder.

She lifted her head as his hand departed from her and gazed in the direction of that screen, currently cycling through a slideshow of beautiful places.

“How about we go somewhere far away, just you and me?”

She tilted her head to the side and watched a beach turn into a snowy mountainside, then into a forest, her interest piqued as much as it could be in all this pain.

“It’s been ages since I left this little town. And it’d be your first time.”

She slowly rose further, moving to kneel before her dad so she could better see and appreciate what she was seeing, eyes widening upon another rendition of tall trees that broke the sunbeams with their branches.

He turned, too, and his smile was uncertain. “I think we need to get away from it all. All the memories of this house.” Though he knew they’d bring memories with them wherever they went. 

Breath left her nostrils a little more harshly upon imagining the sounds made by the broken shoulder of a river, fed by that distant waterfall.

“Go someplace with fresh air.” As if those memories could be cleansed of all negative emotions and connotations.

She imagined the texture of dirt paths flanked by shadowy underbrush, realising that she so rarely got dirty.

“But that’s just what I was thinking.” He turned back to her, playfully pressing his finger to her nose, regaining her attention with a blink of those ruby eyes. “What about you?”

She licked his fingertip before it left her, tail wagging with a little more gusto than before.

“What do you think?”

* * *

“I still think you should get her a counsellor.”

“When she’s ready for that, I will.”

“It worked wonders for Princess, see.”

“Yes.”

Princess referred to the slobbery Granbull intent on devouring her weight in savoury pellets, with that sad expression of loss in her thuggish features, as if trying to fill a hole, inside, left by Sam’s death. Her siblings weren’t faring much better. 

Amber ate unenthusiastically, hardly conversing with the mourning Bayleef beside her, a clumsy and sweet creature with some residual infatuation for the Braixen. It felt so swamped, sitting amidst her cousins on cushions because the tiles were so cold, eating from a pile. This atmosphere may as well have been a heavy blanket, draped about her shoulders. She still found it unfortunate that Sam and Michael, now Michael alone, made them eat like pets, but that was what they were. Only she could claim the right to a seat on a chair, joining Jason at the table back home.

Michael had confided in Jason, admitting that having to explain Sam’s eventual death to their pets was the hardest thing he’d ever endured. And that every day since had simply been second to that.

“And I know how dumb it sounds–”

“Not at all.”

“But it’s like Samantha said. Even I had my doubts.” Michael sighed into his coffee, gaze roaming his expensive home, a mess, Sam’s adopted creatures currently sharing a pile of treats in the middle of the expansive kitchen, miraculously without any fighting. “Hell, I didn’t believe in that shit, how could I? They’re just not people.”

Jason was offended at that and softly countered, “Amber–”

“But our Samantha convinced me. And despite my lack of faith, it worked for Princess. And if it could help fix some of what made up that lump of personal problems, then it kinda gives me hope for the rest of us, too.”

She’d been adopted as a Snubbull in a traumatised state due to witnessing her elderly master being hit by a drunk driver whilst browsing a shop window, rendering Princess especially difficult and unwanted, an irresistible challenge for the impulsive Sam and her obedient husband, Michael, who lived to please her, now left a widower who lived to take care of so many of these charges, all of whom were in pain.

“Just had to give it a chance and some time.” He sounded wistful as he said it.

For Princess, this tragedy would very likely cause her to regress.

“But sure, a trip might be good for you both.”

“Yeah.” Jason sighed. “I hope so.”

“Just remember your health up here.” Michael tapped his skull, just above his rectangular silver framed glasses, brown eyes fatigued and soulless. “It’s important, too, turns out. Like Samantha said. Just look at Princess.”

“Mmhm.”

“I’ve been getting some therapy of my own. Not, like, as regularly as I probably should. I go whenever this lot gives me the time.” A nod at the gathered party, discussing their own things sombrely over their shared meal. “I’m going through pet sitters like it’s about to be out of fashion.”

Sam had never believed in trapping their souls in those balls, thus she forbid it, giving them perpetual free range about their home. But she was also quite dismissive of them, once they outgrew what she’d originally fallen in love with. Michael had slowly suffered the same fate with age.

Jason hadn’t had a strong opinion in the matter, before Amber. Though he sympathised with Michael’s predicament, using such a device felt almost inconceivable, now. A last resort, if anything.

“Well. Anyway."

One man consoled another, a heavy hand settling on a slender shoulder.

"Wherever you two end up, don’t forget to do an old man this favour.”

"You're not old. What favour?"

"I'd love a vacation. Fuck me, that sounds good." Michael closed his eyes, seemingly willing to drift off right then, as Jason stroked small circles. “Take pictures for me.”

"Sure. I will."

"Thanks." Michael smiled distantly, his home a prison.


	4. Chapter 4

Amber pressed her nose to the glass, but her heated breaths fogged it, despite the flowing of air from above. She pressed in anyway, because she had an urge, restrained despite her will.

Sam had taught the Braixen not to open the window all the way, because it was dangerous to give in to that temptation.

Indeed, Amber was inclined to stick her head out of the moving car so she could see and smell and hear everything in this passing, rushing world. But she resisted, though she didn’t want to. And it frayed at her patience with every hour that passed, interspersed with her wiping the glass clear and forcing herself to sit back in her seat, only to inevitably press in, again, creating more fog until it seemed hopeless that she could be better.

“Honey.”

She turned in the passenger seat, the belt buckled in for her safety, and found Jason’s smile was edged with pain. He’d been very quiet for a long time and she had left him to it, since the sounds she made were generally meaningless and she didn’t wish to detract from his thoughts with her noise.

“It’s up to you,” he said, in his soft voice. “I trust you.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but said nothing.

“You’re clever and capable of making choices of you own.”

She closed her mouth, fangs connecting with a pretty sound.

“I won’t stop you.” His green eyes were like a forest seeped in misery despite how cheerfully he had conveyed himself that day. He felt so much regret, so much shame, so very disappointed in his sister, in himself. “Don’t worry about me, honey.”

The Braixen loved the man so much, it truly was all that was left to her, all she had to keep herself going.

Jason hadn’t stood up to Sam when she was alive, forcing Amber to act in accordance with human whims that were sometimes so unnaturally pleasing, to the point of being cruel, like a Braixen could simply be cultivated and cultured against the grain of her soul. He wondered if he’d held back out of cowardice as much as mercy, knowing he would miss Sam so terribly once she’d passed. But she was gone, now. No performance could possibly bring her back, whilst Amber remained.

The Braixen slowly turned back to the partially opened window.

The man then hummed in tune with the radio, its volume nonobtrusive, just enough to help distract them both when conversation had died on this long, winding drive.

Her eyes were upon the fascinating rural world that passed her by, contemplating the thoughts and personalities of the livestock in their paddocks through the fading fog on the glass, rendering it all a blur, even the rugged people tending to them, even the vineyards and the quaint cottages, until she reached for the mechanism that would lower the glass partition all the way it could go and did it, finally.

He swallowed back the lump in his throat and drummed his fingers over the steering wheel as it hurt too much to hum, just then.

She leant again, but she was careful not to stick out her head too far, just far enough for the wind to sweep her smiling face and consume her to the very roots of her silky fur, ears braced ahead to cup sounds beyond the roar of air and engine, eyes narrowing as they darted over sights of interest, filling her head with a flood of sensory ecstasy.

Rebellion.

She didn't wonder, yet, if it was instinct or free will that ultimately chose.

* * *

“That little fellow is a…” Jason was consulting the guidebook. “Hmm…”

Amber stared into the large, round, charmingly dark eyes of the feathered creature.

It stared back.

“Sure are a lot of… Uh.”

Recognising her for what she was, not who. She was not a personality with thoughts and feelings of her own, but a predator. The prey stared because she was nonaggressive, perplexed.

She thought that perhaps she sympathised. No smile would console it unless Jason tamed the little feathered creature, but then, Amber didn’t trust herself entirely to be on equal terms with it.

Her dad wasn’t worried that his daughter might kill something, with or without instruction to do so. She was not trained to battle. She was brought up to be a pacifist. He was not a violent man and Sam had abhorred bloodshed for entertainment's sake.

Amber was confronted with a part of herself that she wasn’t sure she liked, from an intelligent and emotional perspective, but it was an old part, familiar, in some sense ancient and beyond her fragile existence, her fragile thoughts and feelings, her fragile upbringing.

The forest was a Braixen’s natural habitat. These endearing, smaller creatures – with their fluttering heartbeats and delicate wings and scurrying paws, all pulling at her from the inside, teasing her at the core of her being – where a Braixen’s natural prey.

“Hmm…” A glance up from the page, quickly assessing the marked feathers for comparison. “No, not one of those…”

She had felt such inklings before, when fighting the urge to chase the littler pets in the park, when she was careful not to nibble wiggling fingers too hard, because doing so was forbidden. Pets were property and people were sacred.

But this creature was wild, not beloved by any master. It would not be missed by anyone significant, as long as it remained its own.

Jason would surely disapprove, though.

Amber thought back to the car window. And what would she hope to gain from the hunt, if she succeeded?

Her human would be upset, at the very least.

And how would she feel?

“Ah, found it.”

What would she think?

“Fletchling.”

Amber loved Jason. Amber loved Sam.

The Braixen stood at the base of the tree, snout upturned, eyeing the small feathered creature that was cutely perched on an overhanging branch, just out of leaping range.

“That’s a Fletchling."

Amber huffed.

Jason closed his book with a satisfied thud. “Lovely little fellow.”

The Fletchling marvelled at the Braixen that did not hunt it, that did not flee from the presence of the large human, his scent all over her, her scent embedded in his clothes.

The predator inside of her calculated that a well-aimed fireball would have worked just fine to bridge the gap, but then, what would she do with its charred remains?

“Hi, Fletchling.”

Eat the Fletchling? Play with the Fletchling? Apologise to the Fletchling? Give the Fletchling to Jason? Humans had their strange rituals for the dead and the dying.

"Ready?"

Amber pulled herself away, turning to smile up at Jason.

"Okay. Bye, Fletchling."

Man and Braixen moved on, leaving the prey to stare in the peaceful predator’s wake, totting side-by-side with the conqueror. Bipedal.

* * *

“Well, this is as good a spot as any. What do you think?”

Amber yipped and Jason ruffled her ears.

They’d stepped into a clearing. Water flowed aside in a gentle stream, adding to the music of the trees. It was oddly perfect.

Relieved to unshoulder the heavy pack, he set it carefully at the base of a large rock, topped with moss, then helped her remove her own. “Hungry, honey?”

She nodded vigorously, flexing her arms, her shoulders.

He chuckled, then said, “Me, too." A nod at the bags. "But let’s set up the tent first, yeah?”

She helped, giggling with him as they struggled with the equipment.

Starting a campfire would be so much easier.

Though she did take a moment or two reviewing each stick they had gathered as kindling, in case she found one worthy of replacing hers, always sheathed within her tail. But she sighed when nostalgia eventually won out, resigning herself to setting fire to the rest, casting flame in a motion of her paw she hadn’t practiced, yet it was as natural to her as breathing, albeit clumsy breathing. She felt giddy afterward.

“Good girl,” Sam would have said, if she hadn’t disapproved of such a thing as setting fires to other things, no matter how natural it felt.

Amber was rendered sad and defeated all over again. Not normally needy, she found herself clinging to Jason’s side as he arranged his human tools and the sealed foods.

"Long day?"

She nodded again, realising she was not only depressed, but also very tired and her legs hurt and the forest that surrounded them was intoxicating.

“Okay, okay, I’m on it…” He was always so patient. "I'll have dinner sorted and then we can have an early night. Yeah?"

Her tongue swiped his abrasive cheek. She tasted the salt on his ruddy skin.

“Yeah. Give me about, um, thirty minutes, honey, okay?”

She grunted, then opted to trot elsewhere, the soil beneath her paws rich and firm, nostrils inhaling the tang of tree sap, ears tracking a fragile, tiny cry from somewhere to her right. She wavered, as if confused, before realising she was thirsty, taking a graceful yet unsteady bend toward the stream.

Unbeknownst to Amber, Jason watched, amused and concerned.

There she fell on her shadowy knees and met a handsome, windswept Braixen on the water’s surface. She met herself.

“You alright?” her human called to her.

She called back that she was fine, distracted by the way her face contorted to make that reply, baring her teeth and tongue. She felt desire. She was the only Braixen she had ever seen in person. Was she lonely? Had she always been lonely? What happened to her brothers and sisters from the pen? Would she meet wild kin? Would she know how to react to one, if she did? Would she ever mate?

Jason oversaw this crisis and inwardly agreed with Micheal, beginning to device a plot to gently convince Amber that it would be prudent to see a specialist. And Jason would, too. After this adventure concluded, they would seek help. Sam would want that. They could be helped.

Amber wanted to leave her musk on the trees. To mark territory with her chemical signature, like she wasn’t allowed to do at the park, or in the house. She'd set fire to something.

“I’m sorry,” he said, speaking as much to himself as to anyone, before sinking his teeth into his knuckles.

And she wanted to taste this fresh water, lapped from the stream. She wanted to bathe, as the thrill of being dirty was wearing off after being cooped up in the car and then walking in the forest for so long, not hunting prey. But then, she would draw closer to the handsome Braixen, when she was already falling apart just thinking too hard, feeling too much, whilst facing herself and the contorted expression on her face.

The air was clearing their heads as much as it befuddled them.

She gazed into the eyes of her own reflection and tried to feel whole.

* * *

“Call me a sappy old man, but…”

Bellies full, they were calm, again, but only on the outside, seeking mutual reassurance in each other.

“That’s okay.”

Amber was nestled in Jason’s arms, her tail curled about his side in an answering embrace.

“I haven’t had a cold night,” he murmured between her ears, “since we met.”

She could hear the smile in his voice.

He felt hers. Traced its shape as he brushed his thumb across her muzzle. “Thank you.” There were red lines in the skin over his knuckles.

She couldn’t cry. Not in that human way.

“I love you, little one.”

She couldn’t speak. Not in a way he’d understand.

“I was thinking.”

She trailed a paw over his fingers, drawing his hand to her heart, an inferno.

“If you want to, then tomorrow, let’s play.”

Sam had unrealised dreams.

Jason breathed, his chest expanding soothingly against Amber’s back. “What do you think, honey?” His bearded chin rested atop her head, rough against the velvet of her fur. “Would you like that?”

She sat in his lap, so much smaller, and she ached despite his soft-spoken, gentle comfort.

They were stargazing.


	5. Chapter 5

Amber was sprawled out over Jason’s broad chest and the swell of his stomach, her muzzle buried in his greying beard, paws squeezing dainty fistfuls of the fabric of his clothing, silky fur and burning breaths keeping her vulnerable dad warm, like he said.

He was so big, but he needed her.

She loved him so much. More than she loved the idea of being needed by someone greater.

He had laid there, before, arms and legs entangled by the sleeping bag, and he had spoken to her for some time, in his tender, husky undertones, about the games they might play come morning. Eventually, her answering coos and reassuring weight eased his mind to sleep, leaving her to herself, in his presence.

These moments were the hardest. When he was here, but she felt so alone. Moments in which she realised again, or rather remembered his inability to fix the brokenness she sensed, sensed before Sam’s death, before Amber even knew that humans could die and that Sam was sick. And this nature, this forest, an instinct that spoke into the marrow of the Braixen’s bones, only made it somehow worse.

Amber imagined running. Somewhere. Chasing some scent or sound. Unbound. Guided by her body and the blood of her kin that survived before her.

But Jason was here and Amber loved Jason. Amber loved Sam.

Is there a compromise, in this growing, compounding madness? the Braixen wondered.

The forest was so loud, for all its subtlety. Taunting this domesticated, mourning creature that could do nothing but salivate, incapable even of tears, articulation of intelligent grief lost in bestial wordlessness.

Sam had taught Amber that culture and femininity are valuable. Sam still lingered, that abject longing for her love, her discipline, her well-meaning mistakes, in the aching places inside. And the tent was such a constrained space, as if trapping the woman with every exhale in her memory, because Amber breathed Sam and so did Jason, but at least he could sleep and dream, because he had his sole comfort in the world.

The Braixen wanted to feel at peace, whatever that meant.

Thus Sam also encompassed the limited air within the tent, filling the atmosphere until it was stifling, like smoke from the fire at the end of a stick, as if a torch, which could have been a beacon, or a weapon, or a toy.

Amber nuzzled Jason and he grumbled something incoherent.

It was not this bad back home, where there was enough space to rise from their bed to pace their room back and forth, or to stalk silently on shadowy paws over floorboards and carpets until reaching the front door to stare, waiting, whining, hoping for it to open and for Sam to return to them at an odd hour, with treats and toys and talk, but the door stayed shut at night and early in the morning, for safety.

Jason suddenly shifted, rolling over, and Amber nimbly dismounted him, falling alongside as he curled in on himself, unaware.

The Braixen gave it a moment, then slowly sat up and poised on her haunches to gaze fondly upon him, eyes alight in the darkness, the capacity to listen and think and feel so hot behind sly and melancholy rubies.

Whilst the man dreamed beside her, capable of sleep as he was consoled by Amber in ways Jason could not really reciprocate, despite trying so hard, because their relationship wasn't truly equal, it possibly could never be, despite their efforts, even when Sam had interfered.

Had Amber thought this thought before? Was this thought something new, or did it nag at her, all this time?

Jason wanted an equal.

Amber was not human. Amber was a Braixen. Amber had been sold and bought and so had her brothers and sisters. Maybe Amber was never meant to fully grasp humans and their ways, but a Braixen was a clever creature, prone to learning things, often unwanted things.

The trees sang their song. Not like the murmur of the domesticated trees back home, so sparse and so deliberately placed, stifled by the streets and the cars and the lampposts and the fences.

She didn't have anyone to actually rely on, for the sake of her own pain. She loved Jason with all she had, but she couldn't seem to see her dad as a crutch or a blanket, as much as she enjoyed him and as much as she willingly gave, imagining that life would be awful without him. All of her affection and devotion did not fulfil her, it didn’t save Sam and it actually made Amber fearful that someday, Jason would be lost, too, leaving her alone. Or she may die beforehand, leaving him alone. Either notion was too terrible.

He didn't hear or feel or in some other way notice her rise on her dark legs, bushy tail caressing his brow as she passed, making him frown momentarily as her heat left him cold. He shivered when she eased the tent flap apart and embraced himself more tightly in her wake, even with the tent carefully sealed again from the outside.

Amber left Jason to his dreams in the tent and breathed in greater air than just Sam through flared nostrils, the solitary Braixen strolling past the remains of their campfire in heady distraction, yet clarity, gracefully stumbling past the mossy rock, ambling in emotion toward the stream. There, Amber knelt before herself, moonlit, and reached reluctantly into the cold water to splash her own handsome face, distorting it.

Sam had once gently set a tiny Fennekin into a sink, scaring the poor thing with the suddenness of water, then encouraging compliance with a firm, motherly touch to quivering ribs and scrabbling paws, the Fennekin never having received a bath before, as humans thus called the torture, and quite unable to seek purchase against smooth sides, denied escape by those hands holding her back, reassurances interspersed with giggles that failed to comprehend the terror. And not once did Amber bite in self-defence, not even when her instinct told her to fight for the privilege of fleeing.

The Braixen wasn't happy to think about these things.

“Good girl,” the master had said when the little Fennekin gave up any resistance, exhausted and confused, looking to the big and hairy man who had stood aside and did nothing to stop the woman. Resigned to the invasive process, too, because although Amber thought she was clean, Sam did not and Jason did not like to argue otherwise, not when he was with his dying sister.

The Braixen set her paws into the stream and bowed, touching her nose to that of her reflection, sagging on charcoal thighs. She was surely not the only beast to tolerate such indignity, but were all beasts tortured by it, in some way? These thoughts, these memories? Masters? Humanity?

A fragile, tiny cry from somewhere to her right.

She recognised it from earlier. Lifted her head and turned, listening. Caught between concerned and curious.

But not another cry came.

* * *

“Okay, Amber.”

She bobbed on her heels, as if ready, but actually anxious, unsure.

Jason was smiling down at her, his big, hairy arms open.

She loved and trusted him. Almost as if she were still that tiny, malnourished Fennekin.

He wanted to make her play. It was an invitation to engage physically, even if it risked being hurt by claws or teeth or the fire one might breathe, given the space to freely breathe.

She was a playful being by her nature. But her nature was stifled. Sam had simply been reluctant to encourage certain forms of play. Thus the Braixen had been careful about how she and her dad had played, all her life.

But Jason looked at Amber like he wanted her to throw herself into his arms with all her might. His green eyes were apologetic and loving. He wanted to make up for his silence all that time.

She took to him at a run and she was so close to giving him this absolution, until she realised, remembered, her upbringing, again.

"Don't do that," had been said, echoing now.

Sensing that Sam would disapprove, Amber ducked at the last moment, slipping between Jason's legs to emerge behind him, untouched, panting without nearly enough exertion worthy of this need.

He turned as quick as he could, swooping after his only comfort, not quick or agile enough to catch her and stop her from slipping away.

The Braixen darted easily out of the man’s reach, turning on her shapely legs, ears upright and eyes bright, snout lowered as if to track, gaze widened in turn, seeking something she could understand, seeking a compromise or a state in which she needn't hate herself for failing to be her best.

He smiled so kindly, so sadly. He just wanted to make her feel safe and free, without all those social niceties. He wanted to make up for lost time. Lost chances.

In some ways, she could oblige. Small ways. Such as curling up on a vacant chair in a vulpine attitude, rather than sitting as a lady should, upright and compact and lovely, almost human, as a lady was taught all her life to do for the entertainment of those who saw, always appreciative of those courtesies, judgmental of the flaws. But of this, she was hesitant.

“I’m gonna getcha.” An attempt to encourage, goading.

Amber wanted to please Jason. She ran for his legs and narrowly avoided his reach. She had failed. Amber wanted to please Sam, too. Had the vessel of so many unrealized dreams succeeded? But at the same time, Amber just wanted to run for the trees. To be alone, herself, free from regret and shame and fear of anything but a worthier adversary in the wilderness, perhaps starvation in some burrow dug out in the roots of a tree.

“Ooh,” a sound of exertion, “you’re so quick, honey.” Heavy steps. “Here I… I’m… I'm gonna-”

Amber wanted to be herself but who was she?

“So out of shape. Oh, god.”

She skipped away, avoiding him.

He despaired, laughing.

She was always so willing to try to make humans content.

He didn't give up. At least, he still had some energy left to try, a little longer. He wasn't getting any younger and he was still in so much pain, too.

Taking pity, she drew close, like she was meeting him for the first time, as if sniffing at food in his hands.

He spoke, reaching for her paws.

She threw herself against his thigh and wordlessly apologised to Sam.

Dad scooped daughter into an embrace, his fingers plunging into her ticklish sides, her teeth harmlessly obliging his throat in kind.

Their world was spinning with them.

Jason fell on his backside, holding Amber close. He had always wanted this sort of relationship when Sam was dictating so much of what Amber could and could not do. He did not know what being a dad truly meant, but surely, a beast could still retain some sort of rugged carelessness whilst still being his quiet and docile daughter. Surely, sentience didn't remove teeth, didn't declaw, didn't erase basic nature to please humans who always meddled.

The Braixen made a sound that the man recognised as affectionate, yet still fretful.

Jason hesitated too late.

Amber felt guilty, again, lapping away the sweat from his nose as he remained bent over her, her smaller frame coiled powerfully within his.

Sam would have disapproved of some of it, whilst encouraging or staying politely silent in response to the rest.

“Let’s play,” was the quiet plea, eyes filling with blurry burning. “Honey, if you want to. If...”

Ears folded down. Eyes narrowed.

"I just... I'm-"

A rumble, caught in the throat.

The man was soothed further by the Braixen's upward look, the sort of gaze that was so preciously dishonest, meant to spare his feelings.

Amber nuzzled Jason under his chin, burying herself in his beard.

"Yeah. Okay."

She then pulled on his shirt, tugging him roughly and desperately into motion.

"Oh, I've gotcha."

Sam was gone and their performance couldn’t change that. Even humans could die, eventually all masters would.

With the beloved sister gone, the brother frantically rubbed the Braixen’s belly, flat muscle bedecked in silk, hot under his palm, growing hotter with upset and excitement and pain, tail wagging and claws snagged destructively in his clothes. "You're-" 

Amber swallowed Sam in a lungful of air, a quiet gasp, as ruby eyes tore away from the green of dad's gaze to seek something from the forest, before fluttering shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the lateness of this update. Depression is sometimes like a collar wound almost too tight.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed. Feedback would be wonderful, if you'd like to bless me so.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Take care.


	6. Chapter 6

It had felt good, to play.

“What’s this?” Jason asked softly, drawing shapes with his fingers over a place where Amber was ticklish, making her kick her velvety leg gently against his belly. In turn, this made him chuckle into her fur.

It had felt good, to rebel.

She dragged her teeth over his arm, nibbling gently enough not to hurt him. Of course, this did not scratch the itch she felt.

To open the window too wide. To kick up grass and dirt, to use one’s teeth and claws, to squirm within burly arms, to make sounds that were almost aggressive. To ponder the death of a Fletchling. Every instance was to flirt with the notion of causing harm. To herself. To another. Harm, death.

He missed his youth terribly. He was easily outclassed by this creature, who had barely been gifted the opportunity to run on her own, yet was so strong and agile and quick, her energy seemingly endless. He imagined that, had she been with a trainer who didn’t fear what she was capable of, she would have been raised into a champion in the arena, or a professional performer onstage, or at the very least a stalwart companion on worldly travels. More than what he and Sam had moulded individually, together – daughter, emotional support animal, pretty mannequin for tiny outfits and amusing social graces.

It felt bad, to feel guilty, afterward.

When Amber thought about what she’d done, what she’d allowed herself to be encouraged into doing, she wasn’t sure she could resist the allure of the forest forever. She didn’t want to go home. But she knew she couldn’t stay.

Jason lifted his big hand and scratched the underside of her jaw, a little behind her chin. He said something lovingly.

She whined her reply, but it sounded like laughter, one of her odd little noises that people adored in her kind. Imagining all the ways she could have been scolded for her disobedience, if Sam were still alive, and imagining how useless it was to still bother trying to please a ghost that they breathed everywhere they went, even here, where the air was so clear and toxic.

Jason wanted, in some ways, to move on.

Amber wanted, in some ways, to run away.

The man watched the Braixen’s fluffy and painted tail – in need of a thorough brushing and the generous application of shampoo – sway back and forth, if only to distract himself from those sly, sombre eyes for a little longer, as they were no longer lying to spare him, instead gazing at a stain on his shirt.

Chewing on the thickset, hairy arm that cradled her slender and shapely frame, she whined again.

He interpreted it as more laughter.

* * *

“Don’t wander too far, Amber, honey, okay?”

She barked her reply and turned to trot nimbly away, movements like a dancer’s steps, albeit with disoriented senses, emotional and filled with thoughts that were perhaps not the most pleasing when put into bodily motion, like poetry about pain.

She left Jason to sit and pant in the shade, wiping sweat from the creases of his brow, unbuttoning his shirt to bare more of his hairy, broad chest to the air, clumsy fingers darting down only to meet again with the swell of his stomach, causing him to glance at himself. He felt, again, so very out of shape, so unlike his younger self. He wouldn’t have been able to keep up with her, even back then. And yet this was a part of his lack of self-worth, the sensation of his constant failure as a father. He had never been fit for this. Not even back then, when at his prime.

She was wondering the length of the stream when she caught whiff of a foul yet intriguing scent, faint and new within her environment, following it.

He reached for his canteen, failing to notice when her trot increased its pace as that scent grew stronger and more noticeable.

She wasn’t afraid. She recalled the way those garbage cans stank of rotting things as she parted branches of bushes that grew at the edge of the forest, lush alongside the stream, and stood over a tiny body.

A furry creature striped in segments of cream and brown, its round eyes masked by a black stripe, reminding her of marbles even as they clouded over, dry and staring aimlessly, tongue swollen and lolling from an open, rigid jaw, tiny teeth showing flecks of blood, like it choked on itself as much as it had choked on the wire that snagged its neck. A Zigzagoon, Jason had said, consulting that guidebook on their way along the forest trail, before they reached their ideal clearing and the stream that ran through it. And it had died only hours ago, in terror and defeat and pain.

The Braixen reached for her snout, a human display of shock, appalled. This was no natural cause of death. And her exposure to death was limited, purposefully so.

The Zigzagoon was pinned to the earth by metallic wire that a man had surely pegged in place quite deliberately, cutting into the creature’s neck until blood congealed despite the thickness of its protective fur, tiny paws having struggled deep furrows into the ground.

Those tiny cries, Amber realised with a shuddering exhale. The cries that were fragile before they were stopped.

It had cried out for help, but it had been so panicked, so strangled, its cries had been unintelligible to all but itself. Or perhaps screams were such a common feature to the forest, that none of its typical denizens had bothered to respond in aid.

She’d heard them. She’d done nothing to help. And she was a guest, despite her nature, despite her instincts.

Whilst Jason had rubbed her belly, the Zigzagoon may have been staring down a long, dark tunnel, seeking that distant light of an end to its simple suffering. Hours of torturous dying, plenty of time for her to intervene.

And Amber had heard it. And Amber had felt guilty elation as she grappled with her own circumstances. And Amber had done nothing to help the mere Zigzagoon.

The contraption was foreign to her. She’d never seen a man kill a creature, before. It was primitive and brutal and inconspicuous. She knew some men ate their flesh, but only the flesh of the farm stock, creatures which were bred in domestication for this purpose. They were not stolen in their own homes, and she had always assumed their deaths were kinder and cleaner than this.

Jason and Sam were loving people. They had never really talked about how cruel humans could be. They had only glossed over how there was a hierarchy to things and that Amber, as a Braixen, was high up on that pyramid. Jason said Amber was his equal. Sam said Amber was a little bit beneath.

The Braixen quickly stepped out of the bushes, backing away on her shadowy paws, clutching her muzzle, heaving, and the Zigzagoon was not freed from the instrument of its dying torment except by death itself.

Would a man, capable of this, come to collect?

Amber turned and fled.

“Honey?”

She’d been lied to. She knew less than she thought. And she had been told she was so clever. She had tried to learn on her own, but mostly, that amounted to her natural capacity to understand what she’d been told, information so often filtered safely through the mouths and tools of her caretakers.

Jason caught her in his arms, on his belly, as she buried herself against him and quietly wept without being able to cry. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

She obviously couldn’t say. The Fletchling hadn't upset her this badly. Yet the fate of that Zigzagoon, all it represented, every insinuation, she found too awful to bear in polite poise.

“Easy, honey, you’re safe, you’re okay.”

Was every death like that?

“Dad is here.”

Did Sam die a horrible death in that place of healing called ‘hospital,’ too? Did the humans clean her up, make her body presentable to loved ones? How did those rituals work?

Dad could do little but cradle daughter in her distress.


	7. Chapter 7

Jason had done his best to reassure Amber that everything was going to be okay.

The Braixen was quiet in that troubling way. Not her endearing, gentle quiet. This was a foreboding quiet.

The man she loved was quietly troubled, too, but still talked to her, from time to time. And he made the occasional soothing sound that escaped the boundary of words. Almost as expressive to her as his touch, as he loved to touch her and she didn’t mind his big, hairy, clumsy body.

Amber considered showing Jason the Zigzagoon, so he might understand a little of what ailed her, but how could she?

He’d feel the need to explain away the Zigzagoon’s death. Dad would try his best to think up a lie, or a half-truth, that would soften the harsh reality of a human’s involvement. The killer was bound to come back for the body, eventually, and what would happen to the Zigzagoon, then?

And after seeing Sam, lifeless in a wooden box.

No, Amber would keep this to herself, for Jason’s sake. She tried to keep a lot of things hidden, to protect him. She didn’t want him to know too much about her. And this was a disturbing notion.

The man and the Braixen were sitting side-by-side before the fresh fire, his big hands untangling knots from her fluffy tail which was slung airily over his thighs, stick still sheathed within the coarser hair.

Amber stared into the glowing depths, the familiarity of kindling, and tried to find solace in burning, erect ears tracking every snap as wood collapsed in on itself, tumbling, sparking embers. It was another song. A song in her blood, her bosom.

Jason assumed that she was simply missing Sam, that the daughter had been struck by a particularly painful memory of her aunt. As was he, but he hid things from her, things about fatherhood and failure, and didn’t quite suspect what his daughter hid from him. Still, he tried to distract the both of them with his soft-spoken talk.

Amber wanted there to be another cry from the surrounding forest, so she could absolve herself of this guilt by rescuing some unfortunate creature from a snare. But then, she reminded herself again, what a horrible thing to want – to desire that someone else suffer, so she could feel heroic and worthy of forgiveness.

“Maybe tomorrow, we can go exploring, again.”

She lowered her head, ears lowering, too, and he noticed her bodily language.

“Would you… like that, honey?”

She hummed.

“We could still camp here. Leave our things. So long as we don’t stray too far and end up hopelessly lost out there, eh?” He chuckled, giving her tail a gentle squeeze, the coarser fur resisting him. "What do you think?"

She smiled, hard as it was, and nodded.

“Those bags are so heavy, aren’t they?”

She nodded again.

"Would you like that, honey?"

She’d always been so good at pleasing her people and the people she was told to please, even when she didn’t feel very pleasing, or even willing. Another nod.

"We'll have a nice, easy walk." He deemed her tail sufficiently groomed and admonished himself for forgetting a comb. "See what we can find. The friends we'll make."

Sam would never have done something so negligent. Then again, Sam would have cringed at the thought of a sweaty, dirty romp about the trees.

Jason reached now to drape his heavy arm gently about Amber’s shoulders, tugging her gently against himself, and she was so pliant, collapsing into the crook of his aging, sagging body immediately, still muscular in places, a body she’d always found very safe.

She looked up, ruby eyes rolling to gaze sadly into his green, her cheek finding its rest on his breast, her dainty nose twitching as she let him blow his familiar air softly into her face, a bit like the open window of the car and the blurry world that had passed her by, before, the world beyond her limited understanding, which had engulfed her, flooding her senses.

“I looked into that book some more,” he said, when he ceased his playful blowing, referring to the guidebook that told them of the fauna and flora of this forest. “Imagine meeting a Sawsbuck. Wouldn’t that be something?”

She did not know what that was. She inclined her head against him and asked for clarification with a yip. Pretending to be more curious than she naturally was, after everything that had happened.

So he described it to her, using his softly spoken words, mimicking branching antlers with splayed fingers held alongside his temple, the other hand squeezing her shoulder to emphasise some excitement into her delicate, yet powerful build. In the past, such treatment would have made her excitable, chittering softly back at him.

Sam would have found it adorable, but would not allow for enthusiasm to deviate into too much ungainly silliness, as a Braixen was a lady, not like the Fennekin of the past.

Majestic and beautiful. Symbiotic with the forest itself. The Sawsbuck indeed sounded wondrous a creature to encounter.

Amber hoped that the Sawsbuck would never meet the fate of the Zigzagoon. She hoped that she would get the chance to meet something greater than the Fletchling, equal to if not greater than herself, something she could befriend without the urge to kill and eat. Perhaps a fellow Braixen would be found, somewhere along a manmade trail, handsome and charming like herself. Maybe she could come to understand more of her world, looking into eyes wilder than her own.

* * *

Jason’s kisses were considerate. He’d been told how scratchy his greying beard was, often advised to shave it off, albeit it allegedly did render him handsome in a rugged way.

“He drove women wild,” Sam had said to Amber, referring to a time when dad's beard was not greying, when he was firm all over, making him groan jokingly in memory of his youth. “He was never interested, but they still tried…” Sam had seemed to find this very funny, all the hearts she alleged that he had broken, simply in being himself, his crime his natural orientation as much as was his beauty. "Oh, they still chased you!"

Amber had been situated between her humans on the couch back home, a book of memories spread upon her lap, which she had dug out of a box in the wardrobe because she was curious and had an instinct to dig. And she’d asked for permission to open it, and she’d looked at her dad, at the younger iteration of dad in the photograph, and his daughter had felt he was still just as beautiful, even if he had aged. She had thought the sacred humans were quite shallow, in that way. Why was Jason without a mate? Or maybe she was wrong, maybe it was her presence, there. Was it her fault, somehow?

Sam had liked red wine. She had liked how it made her hurt less, how easy it was to escape her husband and their adopted, the cousins that outgrew their cuter stages, and she’d fallen out of love so many times, as her time was short, so she drank red wine and teased Jason and made Amber wear clothes whilst fading away, slowly at first, then suddenly, Sam was frail and Sam was gone.

And the Braixen had wondered if the man was still lonely, because when she looked at the dad in the photograph and compared his green eyes to those of the sagging, greying dad pressed intimately alongside, she discerned that he had always been so sad, in his eyes.

Sam had said it had been a long time, since that picture was taken.

Amber had known that Jason didn’t like to keep pictures out in the open, in gilded frames or even on the screen of his computer or his phone, unless they were pictures of nature, of creatures, or of Amber. So finding this collection of old photographs was a treasure, but bittersweet. Maybe this was why. That lingering sadness, staring painfully back. His avoidance of looking at himself in the mirror when brushing his teeth had suddenly made sense to her, how he’d look away when fixing his untidy shirt, how he had been so relieved when she stepped forward, chittered to him to make himself smaller, and deftly fixed it for him with those snowy paws.

He could see himself, then. He had been able to face himself, because his image was somehow pleasing when reflected back at him from her burning, ruby eyes.

She simply loved to gaze at him.

He loved this simple affection, how she had simply loved him, from the moment Sam had left that first time. A tiny Fennekin with a big man, trusting, unafraid.

Amber had known from then on that she was Jason’s. Before the word daughter, before her very name, she knew she was in her place.

He had dedicated his life to raising her and keeping his sister happy. Jason didn’t wish to disturb Amber too much when she was curled up on his bosom, her head resting on his shoulder, her silky cheek pressed now to his careful lips, readily accepting, and he kept depositing considerate kisses in her fur, very careful, wishing to breathe sweet dreams into her head.

She was still deeply upset, but her tail wagged at its painted tip. She didn’t mind the scratchiness of his beard, accepting that the beard spoke and breathed and was part of the man, never denying him the tenderness so many men so often struggled to attain in their daily lives, so frequently too ashamed to ask for something so simple from someone else. She didn’t deny him, for all the heartache in the world, she wasn’t sure she ever could. She just wasn’t sure. She was scaring herself.

Perhaps the excess bodily hair reminded her of her mother Delphox, Sam had half-jokingly suggested over one of their dinners, over one of her glasses of red wine, making Amber try on new clothes.

Jason had smiled at that, back then. And he smiled again, here, in the shadow of the tent, just thinking of that notion. And he smiled, imagining the Delphox Amber would someday become, nuzzling into her soft warmth. Surely, she wouldn’t be scratchy like her dad’s beard. No, and she’d never turn grey. She’d be bigger and hairier and she’d make herself proud, as he was always proud. She needn’t do a thing to impress him.

She opened her eyes, sly ruby shards rolling aside to peer at his ear.

His hands roved her back. He felt her breathe whilst gazing up at the roof of their tent. He had so many things on his heart, the stones in his belly. He wanted to say something that would make everything better but he was never very good with words. And even if he could consider himself charismatic, he’d still struggle to speak to their pain.

Her reaching tongue, flat and broad and hot, raked across the lobe, reminiscent of that inferno.

It was enough to make him squirm beneath her, momentarily giggling.

She smiled and felt sad and wondered if this was it, even when he kissed her cheek again and she loved him so much.

He was alive and so was she.

Sam’s spirit filled their tent.

This was it.

Gratitude, surely. It would come and fulfill. It would cast out anything bad, anything indecent.

Amber felt Jason drift off. But she hadn’t slept at all, even if it felt like maybe she could, lulled by the man beneath when suddenly, she heard it and she sat up so violently, she ought to have awoken him. Fate or god or something kept him asleep.

That cry.

His arms slid from her and she rose to her charcoal hind paws, heart seizing within its narrow cage, as she stealthily swept herself away, leaving dad alone in the tent, bathing in Sam.

It wasn’t dead. That cry, she’d heard it. It was alive, calling for help. She heard it, this was her chance. She was awake and she wasn't dreaming.

The Braixen almost forgot to seal her way behind her, exposing the man to the cold as she silently sprinted, then skidded to a halt, turning back to hurriedly close the flap of the tent properly before turning again and racing along the stream, toward the stinking bushes.

It could be saved. It would not have cried if it was dead because the dead don’t cry. It had to be alive. She’d save it. She'd be absolved.

She eagerly tore through the leaves and readied herself to dig out the peg that held the ring of wire down, but realised that the Zigzagoon was a corpse, as it had been before, when she’d first found it, only now she was whining for it to move and it was further along the brink of true, irreversible decay, like the garbage that stank back home.

If there was a god.

She whined again, nudging the Zigzagoon with a loose twig, too small to serve as her weapon.

The god was playing cruel, senseless games.

She dropped the contaminated twig, took a step away, and fell backward, onto her shapely rump that so many people liked to stare at a little too intensely when she passed them, something she’d always endured politely because Sam had taught Amber that beauty came with its cost, but that cost was worth it.

The Zigzagoon was silent and still.

And the Braixen held her head in her snowy paws, missing her aunt terribly, missing dad, whining for the Zigzagoon that couldn’t have done a thing to deserve this, pondering how she deserved it, too, to be taunted by so much instinct, so much sentience, to have heard that cry in the dark.

What even was death? To love what would inevitably be taken away, often through suffering? When it came, to do nothing, until it went? To be left like this, alive, still suffering?

Amber felt sick. And yet, she was still so excited. That stink.

The corpse was like a book, filled with its own pictures. Information conveyed in decomposition, even so fresh.

She knew that if she were left alone with a body too long, she’d consider it carrion, because it was whispered to her from the marrow in the bones and the stilled blood and her own raging inferno as a predator of modest stature that, to survive, would resort to ugly things. Humans spared her of that. But had she known it, then? Had she known it, when she’d refused to touch Sam’s pale, rigid fingers with a paw, or nuzzle flared nostrils into the hollow of her cheek, when the nice man in the formal clothing invited the Braixen to the open casket?

What was a monster? She felt like one. Monstrous. Delusional. Maddened by the toxic forest that was natural to her, maddened by her man-made hometown, maddened by innocent death, suffering life.

That cry. Was it real? Had she been dreaming? Now, all along?

Amber was lost inside and outside. Still, she wanted to flee. She sniffled tearlessly and curled her tail about her muscular thighs, knees braced against her chest. Still, she wanted to stay. She breathed in and out unsteadily, the stink warping her mind. She was sorry. She wasn’t. She was. She had to be. Sorry, sorry, sorry, so confused, what to do, where to go, how could she?

Predator, pet, prey. Predator of the smaller creatures that ran and hid. Pet for her people, her family. Prey to those who made snares, pegged into the ground to trap and choke perhaps even a clever and handsome Braixen, and prey to those she met with their slimy compliments and groping hands and ogling eyes, hovering about a Braixen in the shadow of her family, emboldened when she was alone.

Her snowy paws. Her charcoal legs. The fur that fanned out like a skirt. Painted tail. Pointed ears and fiery tufts. Eyes. Chest. Stone in the belly. Designed to be pleasing, to perform, to fight, to fuck, to kill, to eat, to mourn. A tame Braixen in the wilderness, Amber, all alone in her natural habitat, reeling in her instincts and her sentience, sitting uncomfortably close to a freshly rotting Zigzagoon, heady in the stink of it. A wilderness inside a tame Braixen, when Amber, all alone in mankind’s kingdom, sat in an uncomfortable chair in a room in a holy place, led aside for private counsel and deposited in trust, her thigh pliant beneath the roving grip of the nice man in formal clothing who had disliked Jason’s lifestyle and said Sam was too good to be gone so tragically soon, even if there was a divine plan, kneading muscle in charcoal velvet.

Death, yes, but what was life?

A good Braxen. At least, Amber had always tried to be good, to be her best when she had the strength. She never bit the hand of the holy man or any of the hands of unholy men just like him. She didn’t touch Sam’s hand when it was pale and rigid and cold, nor her hollow cheek. Jason was comforted, even if he was alone in the tent, because he had been left to the mercy of sleep, assuming Amber was still there, when she’d almost abandoned him. But was this the one thing she had failed to be? A good, dutiful daughter. How much of herself was herself, how much of herself was pretense, a performance? The open window. The Fletchling. The forsaken Zigzagoon. The cry. Monster.

Could she be saved, whoever or whatever she really was?

What an odd thought. After all, it was the Zigzagoon that was dead, it was Sam that was dead. Jason lived. Amber lived. Wasn't salvation limited to souls, those constructs humans spoke of? Did creatures less than human have souls?

Jason and Sam and society and the little animals that fled from predators all gave Amber names and a reputation to go with every name and there was so much that wasn’t known, so much withheld and skewed, so much mystery about the Braixen and the humans and the predators and the prey.

Amber had a personality. Amber, could she have had a soul, too? Did it matter? To be saved, wasn't it necessary? Did she deserve that, this?

It was a mystery to be a Braixen in the human’s cultivated world. But in this forest, it was still a mystery. She couldn’t so much as save this Zigzagoon, so how could she save Jason? How could she survive if she still felt humanity, or in some ways, human, humane? At least, she’d been taught, so she assumed that compassion and guilt were human traits. What about the Braixen, who sat, unintentionally seductive to those who could not see her, now, and could not know that she was considering eating the body, though she hungered for things she couldn’t speak?

That cry. Had Amber really heard it? Was she asleep when she thought she didn’t dream?

Defeated, again, she let go of herself and rose, upright, prettily unsteady, dragging the bushes closed before turning to leave. But she didn’t leave.

Did it matter? Did it really matter, anymore?

She turned back, eyes wide on the shadows between the trees, where the moonbeams couldn’t breach the leafy canopy.

It had come from someplace, something, beyond the Zigzagoon. That cry.

She felt her inner fire, licking herself, her organs burning.

Surely, it had cried. Something out there called. She heard it, it was real. It was out there. She hadn’t dreamt it. It could be suffering worse than she, maybe worse than the Zigzagoon, maybe worse than Jason, or Sam. She didn’t ask why that cry came again, only assuming this might be salvation, or a mere start, even if not for her, she could still seek it. And if she was wrong, if it turned out she hadn’t really heard it, that the voice could not be saved, what did it matter? She’d be left to suffer, that was all. Assuming she didn't meet some danger she could not escape.

Jason loved her.

Sam was breathed.

If Amber was killed, she wouldn't be able to return.

But if Amber didn't go, didn't try to meet the crier, she may have its blood on her paws. She could help. She could save it. Couldn't she, shouldn't she?

When creatures died, did they go to heaven?

Would ignoring that cry, amount to murder?

To refuse to save, if one was able, would that be unforgivable?

Was salvation inherently selfish? To give, for one's own glory.

Was it wrong to desire another's pain, to feel forgiven? To be saved.

Amber had never raised her voice, before. She wasn’t sure she was doing it right when she tossed back her head and bellowed, her voice strange, even to herself, piercing the dark forest and sending little creatures scurrying away. She felt foolish, on the one paw, and she felt it was exhilarating, on the other, and the stones in her belly told her this was a pointless and pitiless errand, whereas the licking inferno made her feel alive. And she held her voice as long as she could, until she couldn’t, anymore, jaws snapping shut and paws wringing together, waiting.

Jason stirred in the tent, fumbling for his daughter, finding nothing, because she was outside and she got her answer.

That cry, very real, very reassuring, came to her through the dark, between the trees.

She exclaimed again, inhuman, inhumane, her voice carrying despite disuse.

It was enough to garner another distant reply that reached her more quickly, this time.

So she initiated a conversation in screams. She didn’t realise, at first, that she was running toward the source. That she’d left the campsite with astounding speed, velvet paws muffling the weight of her steps and obscuring the snapping of twigs and dried leaves, thus promptly abandoning her dad in the tent, relatively defenceless without her, even though she’d never fought a battle in her life.

Jason fell back to sleep, dreaming of Sam’s fingers between his shoulder blades, Amber’s tongue on his brow.

The barking Braixen ran without considering how much unwanted attention she might attract, how she’d get back safely without making a wrong turn, and only realised she was running when she tripped, but caught herself on the other black paw, righting herself without slowing down, in turn driving herself into a tree, mind brimming with realisation of what she’d just done – how stupid she had been, chasing a fancy, allowing herself to be pulled like this – moments before she fell into darkness, collapsed upon herself, unable to answer that cry when it came for her, again.

Time passed.

She recovered, groaning, and tested herself, finding she was fine, just sore and embarrassed. Hopefully nobody saw that. She sat up, rubbing her head, wiping dirt from her soft mouth. She needed to return to Jason. This was madness.

The voice chimed again, crying for her, closer than before. Stirred into greater noise by Amber’s silence, after she’d given the crier some hope.

She must have run farther than she thought. She had no idea where she was. Forest just looked like forest, all around. She could faintly hear the stream. She hated herself. She didn’t recognise, or know herself. She wanted to cry back. To satisfy the ache she could hear in that other voice.

It cried, again and again, despairing.

She lowered her head, listening to the stream, to that cry, begging for her answer. She’d been wrong. She wasn’t sure what being right meant. She couldn’t go. She couldn’t stay. If she was wrong, she could still be right. She could some make things, or a single thing, right.

The Zigzagoon may have struggled in silence, but did this death account for them all? Was there a living thing, somewhere within these trees, crying to the Braixen who heard and answered and now said nothing? If Amber answered it and got up and ran toward it, could she return to Jason in time? Would she be safe, to ensure his safety upon her return? Her wellbeing only mattered so far.

She realised, sitting there, that she didn't care about her life. She wasn't even living for herself. Had she, ever, actually lived selfishly?

A Fennekin, defeated between lathering hands, humiliation partway submerged in warm, soapy water, unable to escape from the sink. A thigh in a holy man’s wandering grasp, broad tongue and slender teeth unable to confess this molestation to dad when he collected her, the two men exchanging strained smiles at Sam’s ritual. Amber couldn’t touch the body. Yet she prodded the Zigzagoon with a twig, tainted, and tasted it with her other senses. And she had chased the cry partway. Was this selfishness? Was this the onset of selfishness?

Again, a cry, not too far away, seeking her voice in exchange, a reassurance.

She should go back to Jason and leave the mysterious crier to whatever pain they sounded like they were in.

This cry in particular tore at her heart.

She couldn’t help but reply, anxiety and sorrow and other things, traits that may have belonged to the humanity, traits inside she may have merely copied, seizing herself by the throat, warbling her voice. She needed to return to Jason but she couldn't bear the thought of another being in a snare. She felt ensnared.

When the other creature cried back, it sounded relieved, because she had answered it, at last.

Jason.

The unknown creature, perhaps hurt, perhaps a source of danger itself, was still crying, sounding quite excited, yet mournful, sounding harmless, yet hurt.

But Jason.

But it sounded beautiful, that cry. A siren, calling for some specific sort of relief, stirring Amber in a way she’d never felt stirred, before, as she sat and listened to it, to the subtle stream.

Sam was dead.

Jason would be cold, but he'd be safe, in the tent, in that ideal clearing. There were some hours left, before he'd wake, alone, with the sunrise.

Amber still had time.

If only god or whatever would show some grace.

Rebellion had never been so sweet, so sour, in that caged inferno as the Braixen rose again, barking.


	8. Chapter 8

Amber burst through the underbrush, panting, eyes wide, tongue lolling, nostrils flared, and she didn’t know what poise was, what purpose dignity served.

Another being made its dramatic entrance, too, clearing the bushes in a nimble leap to land in a broken moonbeam just opposite, its muscles jarring with impact, yet the beast made barely any sound on the dead, dry leaves, the snapping twigs.

She gasped, skidding to a halt mere paces away, stumbling back to keep a respectful, cautious distance.

Lifting its head, it looked at her for the first time.

Her world imploded.

It was looking at her, whatever it was, and its eyes were intelligent, like hers.

She was suddenly quite unsure what to do or say, as those round, dark eyes assessed her from below.

It was in a similar state of emotional and sensual disarray, squeaking adorable, airy squeaks to itself, sounding eerily like a chew toy, if that toy was made of muscular, breathing velvet.

She stuttered, as if intending to say hello in the most confusedly excitable manner she’d ever said hello.

It blinked and made an effort to properly reply, equally clumsy – hello.

The Braixen cocked her head and her tail was cast into friendly, uncertain motion. She didn’t know the name humans assigned to the creature that crouched before her and it didn’t give itself a name. Naming things was a human preoccupation.

It seemed to study her in a timid fashion. Glancing about her various bodily parts. Quite curious about her fanning fur, her legs, as if those were attractive or noteworthy traits to it, but in particular, its wide gaze followed her sheathed stick.

She felt self-conscious, then. She couldn’t make out much about the creature with it positioned so defensively, bent low to the ground, its fur cast in warm, earthy shades, apparently designed to disguise it against dirt, as much as was revealed by the broken moonbeam, the rest cast in enigmatic dim of night-time. Colours were hard to distinguish in the dark, even for a potential predator like herself.

Although nervous, it seemed to digest her presence, her appearance, patiently. As if confirming its own expectations of her.

She murmured, asking if it was hurt.

It seemed taken aback by the question.

She’d been so scared it was dying. There didn’t seem to be any wire caught about its neck. She couldn’t smell blood. So she asked again, was it hurt? Why it had cried.

It blinked, its furry brows arching, tiny nose twitching, mouth soft.

She wondered if perhaps she wasn’t making any sense. She’d never considered the possibility that there may be difficulty in understanding one another.

It finally made a rueful, chuckling sound, eerily human, even though it didn’t carry that scent of domestication. Evidently, it understood her just fine.

She reeled a bit as the mysterious creature slowly began to rise, letting out a mournful sound as it did, taking a step deeper into the broken moonbeam like it was a spotlight upon its own stage.

This thing was beautiful.

She trembled. This was the most beautiful being she had ever met. This was a beauty that silenced her world, except for that involuntary sound – herself, wantonly whining – as the creature grew taller, taller, granting her these moments of awestruck delight as it fully exposed itself to her.

It seemed to ponder its next communication, unaware of how she processed its image.

No urge to kill. No urge to eat. Instead there was the urge to admire, without tact, without subtlety, gaping. The urge to reach out and touch. To feel it with her paws, her belly, her mouth. But she didn’t dare do that.

It was taller than she, this other being. It had risen now to its full height to assess her from above, its expression and posture seemingly miserably resigned to its own fate. It was heavier. Built to be stronger. Not prey. At least, not unless a Braixen was desperate. This creature could easily kill her.

She reassured it that she wouldn’t bite or claw or use fire or do anything.

It said it was grateful for that. But it hurt to see the disappointment take over the crier’s delicate features, causing its slight shoulders to give in, fluffy paws pressing to its breast, as if to contain its aching heart.

What was wrong? she asked it.

It said, in a faint voice, that it had hoped to meet another of its kind.

Her hopes fell, too. She was a Braixen. Yet she’d answered its call, like a mate. Evidently, that cry was never intended for her. But she was the one who answered, who gave it the notion it was not acting out of folly, in coming here. All desire, every infatuation, fled.

It said that up close, she stank of man, like it was an insult.

She didn’t get a chance to speak for herself, just yet, more hurt than offended.

Men were terrible. Men killed. Men took love away.

Not all men, the Braixen said. Some men were good. Some men were kind.

Suspicion hardened those earthy eyes, fluffy brows lowering, an obvious frown. How had she come here? In one of those metallic, roaring containers? They ploughed into the unwary, crushed them underneath, left their deflated husks to rot under the sun.

She quietly, hoarsely explained that she belonged to a man, yes, but he was kind and good. He looked after her. They came here to heal, to escape, together.

How strange, the unknown beast replied.

She attempted a consoling smile.

Why had she answered the cry with her own?

Her smile vanished. She mumbled about how she wanted to spare another living thing the fate that she’d seen. The Zigzagoon, the snare.

The work of men.

Not all men.

The creature, the crier, sighed, then. But she wasn’t meant to reply to that cry.

Amber explained, with her snowy paws gesticulating some urgency, that she hadn’t intended to deceive. She had heard pain and desperation and loneliness and she knew how that felt. She wanted to help.

Help, how?

I don’t know.

The crier’s expression softened, closer to forgiving.

I’m sorry.

Her voice was different, the beast replied, shifting its weight from one fluffy paw to the other. The beast knew, all along, that it was not being led to another of its own. It knew that the Braixen was not its mate. Their voices were different. All beasts had their own call.

Then why did it encourage her to come? she asked. You answered me, too!

Because, it admitted with defeat, it still hoped.

Still hoped?

Hope doesn't have to be sensible, now, does it?

I suppose not, no.

For what else would answer it? Every creature had its own cry. Maybe the Braixen was not a Braixen. But even if the Braixen was just a Braixen, or turned out to be something more dangerous, it was worth the try, the threat of harm, the threat of disappointment, just to pursue that chance of not being left all alone anymore, the crier said, even when an odd voice cried back and dashed that chance.

She felt sympathy like a rose, blooming in her gut, its thorns plunging. All alone?

It had been alone most of its life. It needed to breed. It hadn’t ever had the chance. What other purpose was there? How else could its kind be saved?

She had answered the cry for companionship. But she was incompatible. She felt sick.

And it had come to her because it was simply that unhappy with itself, by itself, even though it wasn’t truly stupid enough to be fooled. It told her that she really shouldn't take it too hard. Wasn't all because of her.

She was the fool, acting on her own sheltered stupidity. She slowly sat down. She hated herself so much. She wanted to help but only hurt, instead.

It was the last of its kind in this forest. And yet it hesitated, pitied her in some strange way, then eased itself onto its knees, peering down on her, still taller.

Men did this?

In this forest, the beast explained, there were not many large predators. There were other forests like this one, other forests that were more dangerous. Maybe the strong predators had been caught or culled before this crier's birth. It didn't know. All it knew was its own kind was thinning by the time it was born and its mother taught its offspring to fear humans, as it was mankind's coming that posed a threat, filling in that gap. Sometimes, men brought with them creatures trained to hunt. Creatures that had the forest in their veins, too, though the crier had never met their wild kin before. Beasts, stolen away by humans, grown and then brought back, having been taught to kill.

Like a Braixen?

Braixen?

Me. Like me?

No, but the thing that you, a Braixen, would grow into, the crier assumed, simply based on the resemblance between.

Delphox.

They breathed fire from their wands and used smoke to choke the burrows.

She paled.

Gradually, many of the larger beasts disappeared. Not only the crier’s kind, but others, too. Gentle things that fled rather than fought.

Like the Sawsbuck?

If there was enough fur or flesh or something else of value to men on their corspes, then yes, the Sawsbuck.

She said she was sorry.

The strange creature shook its head, large ears stirred by the motion, and said it wasn’t her fault. Clearly, she had no blood on her paws. She was evidently being raised for different things, or she’d become a monster when she grew.

I’m sorry, she said. 

Me, too, was the crier’s reply, just as soft and sincere.

Jason isn't like that. I'm not like that. I... I'm-

What's a Jason?

My dad.

What's a dad?

My human.

Your master?

No!

Both beasts then fell into silence for some time, regarding each other closely, unsure of what to make of their illicit meeting.

It isn’t fair.

No, it isn’t.

It isn’t right. I don’t understand.

What is there to understand? The strong come and the strong overpower the weak and the strong take and the strong leave little, if anything, behind.


	9. Chapter 9

Amber couldn’t meet its eyes. So she kept her head down. Submissive.

The beast, however, leant slowly closer, bowing, too, as it sniffed the air around her.

She shivered.

Are you cold? it asked, quiet and smooth.

She shook her head, trying to shake the forbidden pleasure. What was happening to her? She’d never felt this way, before.

Are you… afraid?

She sighed.

Say something, it coaxed gently. I’ve grown so tired of my voice.

I’m sorry.

You told me so, already. Say something else.

Something else?

Something… conversational.

She was struck by this feeble request, eyes widening, still cast down.

Since you’re here, since I haven’t run from you… and since we haven’t fought… I just thought that… maybe…

She ran her paw across her breast, her heart racing, aching.

I’ve been so lonely. Nobody to talk to. Do you understand?

Her mouth was dry.

I spoke to the littler ones. I tried. They were too preoccupied with their own lives, their own survival, to listen, to answer me. They just stared at me, or they fled.

The Fletchling on a branch, silently astounded.

I’ve tried talking to myself, but it’s not the same. That just convinced all the others – those smaller things that wouldn’t talk to me – that I’m crazy. But I’m not.

Struck again, and stinging, she forced herself to look up. It deserved eye contact.

Or maybe I am quite mad. Maybe… I can’t really tell.

I think you’re sane.

Really?

Yes.

Well, have you met anyone insane, before, to compare me to?

Well, no.

Well, that’s reassuring.

She found herself distantly amused.

The beast was bent, sniffing her air, inquisitive and sorrowful and yet strangely relieved, its brown eyes round and shimmering. It was adorable. Like a stuffed toy. A big, powerful stuffed toy, acting against its nature in conversing with a creature that would grow to be a greater threat, a threat it already knew. Yet it stayed.

Yet she stayed. Speaking back.

And its eyes were bewitching in a way unlike her own. Where her eyes were sly and deceptive, this beast’s gaze was earnest, imploring.

She was about to say she was sorry, again, when it held up a paw, larger than her own, tipped in claws. Her rubies glanced at it, imagining the damage that paw, those claws, could do.

No more apologies, please.

She saw the paw peacefully settle, again, between its muscular thighs.

Just talk to me, won’t you?

Okay, she said, a little breathlessly, deflating.

It perked.

Let’s talk.

It then pondered, quite visibly, and it hummed whilst pondering.

She was drawn to its cuteness. She adored this odd being she’d met quite by misfortune, perhaps not as misfortunate as it had seemed.

But… about what, I wonder.

She almost cooed as it shyly scratched at the fluff at the end of one of its resting ears, tugged across its belly, like a blanket.

Sorry, I’m not used to… being answered. An actual conversation! What should we…?

You.

Me?

Yes. Tell me about yourself.

The beast seemed genuinely happy to be invited to talk of itself, but announced that it was probably quite boring.

I’ve never met someone like you, before, answered the Braixen. How could I not find you interesting? It was her damnable desire to learn, acting up, again.

But it swelled with modest pride. It lived a simple life, it said. It had a warren all to itself, it foraged for flowers, fruits, roots and other things in the forest, it could run fast but it preferred to leap great distances. It knew how to avoid the manmade traps and generally steered clear of the manmade trails, even though the hunters rarely strayed about so openly, where tourists may find them.

Some humans must disagree with the hunters, she said, interjecting gently in Jason and Sam’s defence. So the hunters feared being found by their own kind.

Perhaps, conceded the beast. Although all humans were dangerous, as every single one of them had that capacity to cause harm with their senseless noise and their heavy steps and their discarded rubbish. It seemed more likely to it, at least, based on its gruelling life of experience, that not all humans had the cunning and strength to catch it, kill it, with the devices and creatures they’d stolen, before. But that did not make any human trustworthy.

She didn’t argue further. She was too sympathetic to be offended.

Normally, the beast continued, it would live in a large family, it and its siblings being raised together, assisting in raising one another’s young as families met and merged, growing their warren.

A bit like a neighbourhood, she thought, if humans cared enough to talk to one another and weren’t so scared of strangers. She didn’t doubt mankind was dangerous, even to each other. She just preferred not to think about that.

It would have grown up in soft-spoken conversation under the earth, cautious whispers in the grass, only crying out when seeking a mate at a distance. As its kind vanished, so its cries went without answer, because it had matured too late. But then it could only smile at the Braixen, because it was funny, how life worked out. And its smile was so exhausted, but it was real, there was genuine gratitude, even relief in that expression.

She tried to smile back, ashamed.

The best grunted, seeing the strain, then resumed its attentive sniffing, taking in all of her information, like an open book filled with pictures, except for the details she wouldn’t say, details that didn’t waft from the pores of her skin, her pelt, her breath. Round eyes reading her, too, her expression changing into something a little closer to being coy.

You are fascinating.

Thanks. You, too. Even though I barely know you.

She kept shivering, excited, excruciated.

You needn’t mourn for me.

She explained dully that she was seemingly mourning for everything, everyone, every time. She couldn’t help it. And even then, she was responsible for answering the cry.

The crier respectfully paused, then murmured for her story, too, evidently for context as to the rest of her depression.

She told it. Even told of the Zigzagoon.

This garnered a wise, sorrowful nod. It didn’t interrupt as it listened, its eyebrows arched.

She finished some time afterward, empty, with the cry itself.

Its brows lowered. It nodded again, wise and sorrowful.

She confessed, as if in an afterthought, that she’d never met another Braixen. That she’d hoped the crier might be one of her own, but she took the chance, anyway, hoping more for salvation of some kind, any kind.

You’re… quite like me. Despite the humans. So, I deceived you, too.

No, not really, I was just foolish.

Hope is a foolish thing, then, isn’t it? I acted upon it just as you did.

I suppose so, yes. But you have had so much heavier a burden.

The beast braced its front paws upon the earth, between those of its hindquarters, effectively seated like it was begging for scraps from the masters who cherished their banquet upon the table, seemingly out of reach to a creature that sat so humbly. And it inhaled her. Deeply, this time. And it drank her in with its earthy eyes.

She wasn’t sure what it was thinking or feeling. She just sat, pretty, and tried not to do something wrong, in addition to all the wrong she’d already done, but she was only damning them together as she remained without Jason.

It made a tiny, fragile noise in the back of its throat, perhaps one of empathy.

I…

It blinked, her reflection within its eyes, a convict, surely.

She should go, she then said, for the sake of saying anything, at all. So as not to fall into those depths that reminded her of chocolate. She wasn’t allowed to eat chocolate.

Please, it murmured back. Don’t.

She thought the entire creature would be sweet. How she wanted to taste it, without hurting it.

Stay.

Jason is waiting for me.

He can wait a little longer.

She bit her lip, fang overhanging.

Don’t leave. At least, not yet. I’ve been so lonely. I cried. But you… You answered. You came for me. You’re here, now.

You’re not angry, at all?

No. Yes.

She imagined reaching out with her snowy paw to join an earthy counterpart, claws interweaving

Stay?

Okay.

Those eyebrows were communicative, darting upward in delight.

Her shoulders were broken. I’ll stay, for now, she said.

The rest of the beast perked. Its large, heavy ears even lifted a bit.

But I’ll have to leave. Soon. Before the sun rises.

We can still talk, until then?

We can still talk, until then.

It threw its head, chirping softly.

She couldn’t help it. She giggled, making that sound she had been taught to make.

Tell me more!

About what?

About yourself, it proclaimed, settling again.

But I already–

You told me your sadness. I told you mine. But I also told you how I’ve lived. How do you live? Yes, you’re so strange, to me. So interesting.

My life involves humans.

I’m still curious about you. There’s more for me to know. More of you, yourself, even if you’re tied to a man.

She felt her smile become stronger, more genuine. That’s very generous of you.

You’re not human. You’re not hunting me.

I’m not a Delphox. I will be, someday.

You will be someday. If we meet, and you can overpower me, will you hunt me, then?

No, said the Braixen, firmly. Never.

And where there was doubt about the Fletchling, there was no doubt about the beast.

At least, not this time.

She believed she’d be safe, with it. It would be safe, with her.

The beast levelled the Braixen with a look. Then I can trust you, even after everything.

I’ll do my best to be trustworthy.

Promise?

Promise.

It grunted.

She grunted.

Can we be friends?

She thoughtlessly fluttered her lashes. Sure.

Then speak to me. Tell me more about yourself, about your life.

Yeah. Okay.

It was perched before her, on its forepaws, on its knees, powerful legs bent beneath its sprightly body, eyes wide, ears resting on either side, eager to watch and eager to listen, tiny nose twitching as it kept breathing her in from that polite distance.

She began to describe her life in more detail, careful not to say anything hurtful or offensive as she told of her experiences as a domesticated beast, within her domesticated neighbourhood. She had to explain what many things were. She was forced to concede, to herself, that she didn’t really know all that much about the manmade world, but she still did her best to be gentle in describing its vagaries, the details she could.

The wild beast tilted its head, ears shifting, trying to imagine the manicured trees, the sidewalks made of smooth stone that had been made from stuff ground up, the shops with their broad windows to advertise what was within. And the crier, so wounded all its life, indeed seemed able to divorce its dislike for humanity and their killing contraptions from its curiosity about her, this peculiar predator that had run in answer to its call.

She spoke of her toys back home, her blanket, her favourite foods, the games she played, how she liked to rub her scent on furniture, how she had her assortment of adopted cousins.

It simply enjoyed hearing another voice.


	10. Chapter 10

Can we meet, again?

Amber wrung her paws together shyly, nodding. If you’d like to.

Yes. The friend smiled that aggrieved yet relieved smile. I would.

They stood and faced one another, not far from the clearing, not far from the Zigzagoon, having mostly followed the vague trail the racing Braixen left previously, marked too by a few tufts of her fur, embarrassingly caught in branches.

I'm not usually this clumsy, had been mumbled, along the way.

Saying so had garnered a delicate little giggle.

She'd really enjoyed that sound.

And the friend had been kind enough to offer this escort, on the condition that they did not enter the range of sight of the human, hopefully still asleep within the encampment, but in turn avoiding the Zigzagoon’s stinking bush on the fringe of the clearing, by the stream.

Amber didn’t want her new friend to see that.

Tonight?

Tonight. She recalled a line she’d heard humans use many times and thought to take this one chance she had to wield it herself, tempted to chuckle at herself before she even said it.

Chocolate eyes were pooling with the first rosy light of the morning, gazing down, delving warmly into upcast rubies, patiently awaiting the response, curious.

Call me, she said, without words, and grinned just a bit, so as not to show the true length of her fangs.

Those fluffy brows bent tenderly together, crumpling in their reprieve, a breath passing strong teeth designed for gnawing. The friend obviously didn’t get the reference to human culture, but understood the invitation, nodding innocently. I will.

Amber felt like a bedraggled little actress, before the other leading character in some tale of forbidden circumstances. She’d need to bathe herself in the stream, even if Jason wouldn’t admonish her for being such a mess. That was Sam’s thing to do. But the wild friend didn’t mind the state the Braixen was in.

I look forward to… having someone to talk to, again.

Me, too.

I imagine this Jason can't quite fulfill that need.

He tries. 

He can't understand you, surely.

She didn't admit it, that she frequently felt misunderstood. She hid enough of herself that she was probably quite dishonest. Yet his words were as clear to her ears as the beast's. Why were humans, in so many ways, so disjointed from the rest?

I wish you could simply stay. I think I like you enough. You're so strange, so curious.

She sank a little on her paws.

But I'll call you.

And I'll answer.

Promise?

Promise.

And you can talk to me when I can be with you, again. I'll wait, until then. I'll suffer.

I'm sorry. I'd love to... help you, somehow, I'm not sure how I could, but...

Don't mourn me.

I can't help it.

I'd rather have you cheerful, when next we meet.

She wanted to run her nose, its hot breaths, along those soft-looking ears, until burying her face in that earthy forehead.

Until I get to speak with you again...

It won't be long. Though I know you've suffered most your life. I'm sorry.

Don't apologise to me, over and over. It's not your fault. It's true that between us, these few hours... We can read time differently. But it's not your fault.

I'll keep you waiting. That's horrible of me.

I’ll be waiting. I'm willing to wait. I think.

She imagined the torture of distance and time, how unworthy she was of being pined for.

The friend dragged a fluffy foot through the dead leaves, producing a muffled rustling.

Goodbye, friend.

It wasn't enough. She wasn't enough, and they'd only talked a few hours, they'd only just met. And they were about to do something. Could it ever be enough?

Goodbye, Amber.

She was surprised that her friend took to her name so readily, considering.

It reached for its face, pawing its cheek, as she began to reluctantly back away, even more reluctant to turn from it, as she wanted to gaze upon its beauty seemingly until she died. If she died first. But it seemed likely to be the other way around. She had a whole other stage left to her life.

It watched her go, squeaking to itself, adorably dejected.

She dragged her tail as she finally turned away. Torn. Surely, she could prolong their moments, somehow. Then she thought of it. Stopped herself, eagerly looked back, to ask an obvious question.

Oh!

She felt a fond twinge as the friend embraced an ear, still pawing at the ground.

I’m female.

Her smile grew handsomely lopsided. Me, too.

Brown eyes widened. Narrowed. Demurely fluttered shut upon some strange acceptance, or almost-acceptance, emphasising her gentler features, this other female. Adding something pure to that tarnished smile. Her nose still twitched.

Amber hesitated yet again before returning toward Jason, then hesitated some more before taking another step away from her new friend.

You really do stink of humans.

She walked slowly, unoffended by what was more of an observation, now, than an insult.

But underneath…

She felt a tug on her heart, backward, like those earthy paws held her by a fine, sinewy string, playful in a sad sort of way.

Amber.

Yes? she asked, distantly, still walking.

I’m glad we met.

It stuck her deep inside, deep below. A spike of heat, almost painfully intense. She staggered, groaning, and found herself running, chittering her confusion eagerly as she went on unsteady legs, vying to escape, so as not to throw herself into the other female’s embrace.

The sudden splash, the shallow water, so cold.

What was this sensation?

So much was so wrong.

So wonderfully wrong.

* * *

“Hi, honey,” came the husky drawl, as Jason woke to find Amber curled beside him, as if she’d never left, but she was damp to his fumbling caress. “Oh!” He frowned softly. “What happened?” Ran the edge of her ear between his fingers. “You’re cold!” Was it dew? Had she rolled in the lush, long grass?

She could’ve dried herself with her inward inferno. But she was in a daze, thinking about her new friend.

Forlorn. Forgiving. Female.

Daughter barely responded to dad, allowing him to scratch the underside of her chin as she flopped over onto her side, distracted by her thoughts, her feelings.

“Did you go for a swim, hmm?” Maybe that was it, the stream. Some game in the water. The urge to be clean. He wasn’t entirely mistaken.

Something about those parting words her friend had said to her, in that sweet, fragile voice, made her run to the stream, caught up in a thrill, a panic, chittering excitedly past the dead Zigzagoon to throw herself melodramatically into the cold water, attacking her own reflection, as if it might help cleanse herself of this crude, indecent confusion.

“Did you go for a swim?” he asked again, playful, this time, traversing along her throat, her chest, with wiggling, thickset fingers that smelled like cigarettes. He was always careful when disposing of the butt ends, keeping them in a little bag, resorting to smoking so few just to save what little space he could, space they would take. Sam had always told him it was an ugly habit and that he should quit. Maybe someday.

Amber managed to refocus on Jason, making that laughing sound as she arched herself and nipped gently at his skin, scrabbling against him with her dark rear paws, dainty little kicks, whilst her snowy arms grappled, embracing. But she only refocused for a brief while, even if her body continued to respond as it should, as he wanted.

“What’s this?” he asked, finding a tickly place.

She laughed. Then she was caught up in bushy brows, salivating upon his shirt, chocolate eyes, whimpering her language of longing, a twitching nose, her ears folding, a broken-hearted smile, making her ache.

He murmured many loving things to her, his daughter, but never quite, utterly unaware of this maybe-misfortune.

Long ears, clawed paws, slender body in a ready bend, muscular legs braced beneath.

“Breakfast,” was a word that did manage to breach the fog of guilty fantasy, eventually, as their play drew to its conclusion.

She was hungry, indeed. But she felt guilty to crave this food that was nothing like what dad had in mind, something that didn’t quite fit within the constellation of her instincts.

* * *

Jason was contemplating a broad, short mushroom, paging through the other half of his guidebook, wishing to know if it was poisonous. But he kept glancing at Amber, as she’d been strange since that morning.

She seemed to lose sight of what was happening, where they were going, what they were doing, in lingering fits, drifting in and out of their reality and someplace else, someplace private to herself, weaving between the waking world and some sort of waking dream.

He could only guess what she was thinking about. Perhaps something to do with Sam?

The Braixen trotted airily this way and that, sometimes sniffing things, sometimes turning to stare in a very particular direction, ears keen, eyes like a blaze, faint sighs passing her anxious, smiling teeth, with the quick harshness of her breaths. Her tail never stopped wagging its uncertain happiness.

He wanted to ask. But he felt bad every time he unintentionally interrupted her, because her thoughts were ultimately her own. He wondered if he was being overprotective. Then again, he wondered if, throughout her life, he hadn’t protected her enough.

She couldn’t wait for night to come. She wanted to explode. She wanted to keep herself together, to hear that cry. To answer it with her own. To see her again – the new friend. But Amber feared what harm she might be doing to the depressed animal she could hardly stop picturing in her head. That intoxicating, wild female, bigger and stronger and probably faster. Maybe they could distract one another in play? Perhaps a race, or a wrestle? No, the latter would be insensitive, after all that was said, all they’d learned.

“Poisonous,” Jason murmured to himself, closing the book.

The snap of those colliding pages drew his daughter’s attention.

He was surprised when she approached him so slowly, almost as if reconsidering. “Honey?”

Humans were preoccupied with naming things.

But Amber still respected their knowledge, even if the name was something she’d keep secret, to herself, asking for the book with her reaching paws, gesturing.

Jason passed it to her, feeling pleased, then.

She opened it, so big and cumbersome in those snowy little paws, and sat with it in her lap, simply dropping onto her charcoal rear at her dad’s tattered old boots, sunny fur fanning about her thighs, tail puffed out behind, sheathed stick projecting with a forked end. She paged for something, but he didn’t know what.

He squatted beside her and watched, intrigued.

She found it quickly, the correct page, paw settling beside the name.

“Lopunny.”

She breathed in deeply, shakily.

“Wow. What a lovely–”

Yes, she thought. Lovely. Lovelorn. Nobody to give love to, probably no love for herself.

“Did you see one, honey?” Jason hadn’t noticed such a beast on any of their treks. “Just now?” Amber obviously couldn’t have told him with words, but she’d normally have pointed out such a noteworthy sight and he would’ve taken it upon himself to identify for the both of them. For her to see something noteworthy and not mention it was bizarre, even troubling.

The new friend was a Lopunny. A female, all alone. With only the wretched Braixen who stank of mankind for company, only to meet at wretched hours of the illicit rendezvous, it seemed, like it was all a wretched state of affairs for everyone.

Amber sighed audibly. A bad idea, maybe. Pawing the magnificent picture, she found it the flat depiction of the beast was not as magnificent as the new friend, the Lopunny, had been when they’d met in person, chasing each other’s cry in the dark, like an awesome, awful destiny. They really were alike, in at least a few ways. That feeling of being alone. Lonely. Language lost.

Dad quirked a brow alongside. “You okay, honey?”

Daughter shut the book. Stared at the cover. Was she?

“Amber?”

She blinked, then turned and smiled reassuringly up at Jason, passing him the book.

He took it back, frowning, now, whilst smiling, too.

She felt straight into another daydream, even as she gazed up at him, his sad green eyes, like the forest almost at night. She didn’t seem interested in rising to stand at his side, to continue their adventure.

He had to make a soothing sound to get her up. Definitely, he would find her a specialist, like Michael suggested, as soon as they got back to civilisation. But that had been planned for days ahead, days from now. He took her paw and guided her along, keeping her from wandering astray.

She had barely been cognisant enough to keep him from the Zigzagoon’s stinking bush. She didn’t consider burying it, another ritual.

* * *

Jason talked a while, then he slept, cradling his only comfort upon his breast.

Amber did not sleep. Amber waited. Amber lifted her head, when her waiting was rewarded or punished. Amber heard it, again, finally.

That cry.

He continued to sleep as his comfort left him, sealing the way before sprinting past the corpse, calling in kind.

Friends met under the moon.

Amber’s tail was a flurry. She whimpered and kept herself low, as that larger beast kept her own distance, sniffing one another’s air.

You came, she murmured.

I promised, she replied.

The Lopunny lifted her head, lowered it, evidently excited and not sure what to do with herself. She was happy. Actually happy. She wasn’t used to being happy. What should one do, when finally given something to be happy about? A reason to be glad? She didn’t know.

The Braixen eventually fell to the earth, figuring that if she sat, her sheathed stick waving behind her and her paws tucked upfront so she couldn’t wield it, and thus demonstrated that she was honest when she promised she wouldn’t wield it, she’d be as harmless as she could be. Because she couldn’t sink her teeth or claws into that beautiful fur and flesh, it was wrong to even imagine the possibility she could, she wouldn’t dare. She simply didn’t want to.

Her wild friend settled down, too, eventually, cooing, nose twitching, ears turned back, exposing how wide her smile was.

Shall we talk?

Yes! Please! Let’s!

Amber adored this enthusiasm, as much as she pitied its source. She wished she’d thought up specific conversational topics, but found it easy enough to lapse into gentle words about anything that her somewhat preoccupied brain thought up on the spot, without concern for making herself seem silly, savouring every laugh, her friend sometimes contributing other gentle words.

But the Lopunny seemed to prefer listening, watchful, evidently admiring the Braixen and her laughter, too.

That night, they weren’t predator and prey, outmatched. They had well and truly started something new, something equal, perhaps fully forsaking what was instinct, ancient, perhaps on the very verge of that transgression of their respective natures. They did not fight. They did not flee. Even guilt was set aside. They didn’t consider such things, as they bonded over their illicit, wretched rendezvous, over those dark hours, like this meeting was pure, a wonderful destiny. As if they forged their new natures. Or forged a shared nature, entirely their own.

The man was forgotten as he had been left behind, sleeping. A symptom of what had passed, despite being one of the conqueror’s kind.

The morning would come unwantedly to remind, eventually.

But not yet.


	11. Chapter 11

Hoot.

“Yes, that Eevee did have a devilish glint in her eye. Quite right, darling. But, still…”

Hoot.

“She was so precious! A mischievous character, certainly!”

Hoot.

“The possibilities, alas.” Gregory poured a little more of the antiseptic solution over the bloody wound in his hand, wincing down upon the gift given very eagerly by a wild Eevee he had hoped to charm with food. “Imagine what she might’ve evolved into, old friend. A little love, a little guidance… arguably too much of my curry…”

Hoot.

“Ah, a Sylveon would be superb.”

This trick had worked before – taming a beast by handfeeding it and speaking in a soft, soothing tone, with a warm smile that didn’t show too many teeth – when Eros was just a Rowlet and Gregory was just a boy, realising together that humans didn’t have to use violence, breaking bones to bend wills. Force hardly seemed like a substitute for friendship.

“Yes, I’d have adored a Sylveon.”

The fully grown Decidueye fluffed out his feathers handsomely, his narrowed gaze piercing affectionately from the shadow of his leafy hood.

“I really had high hopes.” The man huffed, disappointed, ignoring that pointedly fond look aimed in his direction as he bathed his wound. “At least she liked the cookie, I guess.”

And since that fateful day when they had first met, as that fateful friendship matured along with them, Gregory still clung to that marvel of Eros’ gentle nature and remained hopelessly convinced that every beast could be tamed this way, because unlike the sordid flaws of a confused and bittersweet humanity, beasts are pure and receptive to the goodness in people.

“You could do with another little sister, couldn’t you?”

Eros rolled his narrowed eyes, amused.

Gregory stopped pouring and took a moment to simply sit and mourn the lost Sylveon that never was, his hand burning, bleeding.

Humans were disjointed like that, too.

The Decidueye was standing guard, tall and intimidating, just in case some other vicious little animal might strike his defenceless and scrawny man, who nursed the fresh bite with an unfulfilled wish in his heart.

Their family could be overheard in their play.

We should get back, Eros said, draping a wing over Gregory’s lithe shoulders.

“That Eevee really did have a devilish look about her. What a… curious Sylveon she would’ve made.”

Hoot.

The lanky man’s glossy black locks of hair had fallen forward, the rest messily tied back. “Quite right.” He sat slumped at the base of a tree, testing his injured hand, dribbling some of the stinging solution between his long, parted legs, bent at the knees, to darken the grassy earth in seeping droplets. “They’ll be hungry by now.”

Hoot.

Nodding, he screwed on the cap, tucked the little bottle into one of his many pockets, then looked up and aside, at his closest companion, winking. “You, too, yes?”

The Decidueye bobbed his head, mimicking a nod.

The Eevee was laughing. She’d been cute, and when the human had been distracted by her charms, she’d taken the homemade treat Gregory had offered to her, after she made him drop the treat to the ground with the feisty and sudden application of her teeth, and she’d gobbled it up whilst scampering fluffily away from Eros’ squawking retaliation.

The little shit, the Decidueye said to himself, hooting again.

The man checked the laces on his boots, made sure he had sealed the bag of treats that sagged from his hip, and then hesitated, as if hoping the Eevee might come back to him.

Eros bent to peer at Gregory’s profile, hooded head tilting, offering a softer hoot in gratitude to a caress along the curve of his deadly beak.

“I suppose…”

The Decidueye nibbled on a strand of hair as the human’s blue eyes watched the red blood, still rising from those punctures, burning beneath a fragrant blanket of antiseptic.

“Really fancied a Sylveon.”

Eros would sigh if he could, tugging on Gregory’s fringe.

“Right, right. Sorry, darling.”

Hoot.

The man turned his head, planting a brief kiss on the curved beak once it released his fringe.

The Decidueye chittered as damp fingers rose and ruffled his belly feathers.

“Let’s get going.”

Eros eased away, offering his dextrous, sturdy wing feathers to help tug Gregory upright, which was easy as the human weighed so little.

Checking to ensure nothing had been dropped, they then proceeded together.

“Did I… scare her, do you think?”

The Decidueye murmured reassuringly, strolling on powerful talons, the human beside.

“I hope she knows I never meant to. Poor little Eevee. Perhaps I was too…”

Man and beast traversed through the forest, bipedal, toward the sounds of play.

“God, I hope they haven’t made a mess of the place.”

Hoot.

They reached their campsite within minutes, as they never strayed far from their own, stepping through foliage to emerge within a clearing that was further along the same stream that Amber and Jason had come upon, guided by a foldable map.

Gregory’s spirits rose as he was eagerly greeted by his brood, running his hands over fur and scales in passing, speaking to each eager face in turn, blue eyes happy to see that the pretend battles did not result in actual infighting, that the beasts he loved and cared for hadn’t harmed the beautiful landscape, even with their heavy steps and muscular scuffling, as they had outgrown their smaller, cuter stages, but his affection never waned.

Eros acted nonchalant about the whole thing, barely flinching as a tongue took a swipe at his hood, tugging it askew. He quickly readjusted it again, remaining dignified. Hoot. Mmyes, hello. Hoot, hoot.

“Hungry? Yes, me too, let’s get right on it. Who’ll help me – sweetie, don’t bite your brother’s tail, does it look like dinner to you? No! You can’t be that hungry!”

Reunited again, the family gathered around the pot, claws and paws participating in the preparations, a multitude of different voices eagerly asking about what the Decidueye and their man had encountered whilst exploring.

“This would be easier if one of you could breathe fire,” Gregory noted under his breath for the umpteenth time when it came to igniting the kindling and he battled with the old engraved lighter again, a gift from someone he loved, someone who had loved him. He was reluctant to resort to the far less sentimental matchsticks.

The younger and less patient ones dared not complain under Eros’ silent glare, highly esteemed as the first.

“A Sylveon would be lovely, yes, but… perhaps a Flareon…”

* * *

Amber struggled to eat, excited as she was, eyes on the sun still making its descent, so close.

Jason placed his hand on the heat of her back and felt how she trembled. “Honey.”

She blinked, turned to look up at him, ruby eyes wide on his downcast green. Dad?

“I love you.”

She smiled. Replied that she loved him, too.

He wanted to say more, as if he could invite her to talk about how she was feeling, what she was thinking about, but she turned away too soon, unintentionally dismissing him.

Once again distracted, following the infuriatingly leisurely descent of the sun.

Her father felt his daughter tremble her eagerness to escape, failing to understand.

The Lopunny would call, soon.

Amber would answer. And when the time came, when Jason slept, she slipped out and ran through the moonlit forest, answering, following that voice, eager for her.

Chocolate eyes rose as the Braixen burst forth, panting. Evidently, a little late.

Hello, friend!

The Lopunny was already smiling. Hello. She was tall, shapely, beautiful, clasping at her heart, stepping closer, nose twitching. My friend.

How was your day?

Awful. Yours?

It... was hard.

Did you miss me, too?

Yes! Couldn't stop thinking about you.

That's really nice to hear. You resided within my mind, too.

Amber whined, but held back from darting forward, allowing the other female to approach.

Thank you.

You don't have to thank me.

I... I was thinking about you, like I said, and I thought...

She tried to pull her tongue back into her mouth.

This is very kind of you. A slow step, followed by another. Coming here. Then another. Meeting me.

I’m grateful, too. I… I’m…

The Lopunny drew to a gentle stop.

This is…

Fluffy brows were bent with emotion, as if the beast, this new friend, could cry.

Wonderful, the Braixen finished in a shaky breath, processing the sensations of standing this close to the wild female, closer than ever before.

The friend bent slowly, easing herself to meet the other’s height.

Being with you… Shivering, Amber buried her paws in her skirt to stop herself from fidgeting as those earthy eyes were finally levelled with her rubies. It… It hasn’t been very long, but… I mean, you're-

All I’ve had to look forward to, lately.

Yes. Yes! That’s… actually… scarily true.

Jason, Sam, those humans you named. They can't fill that void for you, can they?

And the forest was a beautiful toxin, filled with torments, except for this one being.

Tempting, the Lopunny was, the Braixen realised with heady delight. But not a torment. This feeling was far from torture, only the distance and time that separated them could cause pain, as well as the tragedy of their circumstances.

Neither beast was fooled.

Amber would be forced to leave, someday soon.

And the friend would be left behind, all alone.

The Braixen couldn’t promise that she’d return. Jason controlled that and she simply didn’t have the words to convey how important a return to the forest, this particular forest, would be. And someday, she’d be a Delphox.

The Lopunny couldn’t promise to be okay with any of that.

I just... I wish...

Me, too.

It isn't fair.

Eyes like chocolate glimmered in the moonlight, round and intelligent, filled with a lifetime of disappointment and loss, soulful yet hollowed out.

Suddenly, Amber found a paw held before her.

Can I?

Yes, but...

But?

She saw how her friend’s paw trembled, too. Are you cold? she asked softly.

In a way, maybe. A velvety chuckle. I haven’t been touched in... so long.

That must be... so freezing.

Touch me, the Lopunny pleaded, her eyes shyly lowering their warm gaze. If you would, please.

My friend.

After all you've done for me, up until now, there's still this. It'd mean... so much.

The Braixen sobbed in her own way, untangling her snowy paw from her fur and reaching out.

A flinch.

A gasp.

Suddenly, they touched.

The friend squeaked, chocolate eyes squeezing shut, moisture escaping from their corners, like tiny diamonds scattering in the moonbeam.

Am I hurting you?

No!

Amber’s paw was hardly pressed against the Lopunny’s more rugged counterpart.

It's something else.

The Braixen's inferno lit the cavern of her mouth as she withheld those apologies she’d been told not to give, swallowing the fire, not allowing any of it to show.

Th-thank you. And the friend was so small, just then, trembling with her paw held out, barely touching the snowy, smaller alternative.

You’re welcome. Thank you.

This is… w-wonderful…

Amber felt the Lopunny push against her, a bold move, one that made it hard not to whimper.

You're so warm! And s-soft!

The Braixen wanted to throw her arm about her friend’s neck, to pull her into an embrace, to lick and nuzzle and make those soothing sounds within those long, heavy ears.

Talk… t-to me.

Sure.

I... think I r-really like your voice.

I think I really like yours.

It was obviously hard to stand.

Amber guided the Lopunny to sit before her, paws still pinned together by their spread pads.

Those brown eyes shyly reopened once they'd settled, shivering, discovering a handsome smile. The friend ached for it in that way that was pleasurable, far from innocent, timid instincts of prey remaining silenced as words came, words went, and that handsome smile remained. And it was dangerous to look upon the rest of her, but those fiery eyes were simply devastating.

They spoke for hours.

Female, but undeniably, this Braixen who stank of humanity was also the most beautiful thing the Lopunny had ever seen.


	12. Chapter 12

When do you sleep? asked the Lopunny as they stood at their parting place, not yet tearing themselves away from each other, hesitating, rosy dawn broken by the branches of the trees, spilling over them in mottled shards.

Oh…

Oh?

Amber laughed softly.

Her friend turned, fluffy brow quirked.

It depends on my human, said the Braixen. I am awake when Jason is awake. I rise with him. And when the night returns, we fall together. I wait until he’s asleep, before I fall asleep, too.

To… keep him safe?

Yes, and to comfort him.

There was a brief pause.

Do humans have predators, aside from their own kind?

The Braixen stroked her dainty muzzle, fondling the length of her snout with a passing paw as she deliberated how to answer.

The Lopunny gazed down on Amber.

Hmm.

Those round, warm eyes followed shadowy legs as they suddenly moved, driving slowly, casually, into forward motion.

Man’s predators…

Chocolate eyes momentarily vanished in a blink, nose twitching, taking in that contemplative stroll.

Are usually the dark, sinuous things that dwell within the mind, Amber finished, turning around, strolling back, as if she’d intended to pace but ran out of things to say worth pacing about. She was wonderfully graceful, though, and powerful for one so delicately put together. She moved silently on those shadowy hind legs.

The wild friend hummed, a neutral sound, as if pretending not to stare in such a way, but failing to cease this staring.

Now that you’ve mentioned sleep, though… The Braixen smirked, as if at a joke. Actually, I haven’t slept in some time.

But the Lopunny was gently unimpressed. That’s not very good for you, is it?

To be fair, said Amber, standing closely before her friend, close enough that they could easily reach out and touch, you’ve made sleep difficult for me, lately.

The Lopunny blushed, but it was hidden by the rose of dawn. Only she could feel it, that warmth, pooling over her blunt face.

A wink.

An erratic heartbeat, broken by a pleasurable spasm.

I’m only teasing.

Yes, well, I haven’t slept, either, so.

The Braixen looked concerned, then. Are you–?

Can’t stop thinking about you.

Ruby eyes softened.

I wish we’d met sooner, somehow, like we could have more time, that way.

Fangs pressed into a worried lip.

The friend lowered her head, ears sagging, and it was adorably persuasive. And I really wish I could spend all day and night with you. I wish…

A fluffy tail, the sheath for a makeshift wand, didn’t wag, anymore.

You didn’t have to go.

Amber sighed, shoulders dropping as she offered the measly gift of her held out paw, instead. Me, too, my friend.

The Lopunny perked a bit, reaching in kind, that trembling a little less severe than it had been their first time, paws gently pressing together to form this connection.

Perhaps it really was true, that the Braixen ought not to have replied to that cry, that she’d only done more harm than help in making this friend, in the end, measured in moments until death or senility.

But the Lopunny smiled, again, that complicated smile, and it was hard for Amber to fully embrace this regret. Guilt was easy enough.

You’re so warm.

The friend guided their claws to pass, initiating a proper hold, a true embrace of their paws.

So soft, the Braixen murmured.

Are you tired?

No. Yes. In ways I can’t explain, I’m exhausted. I’ve been exhausted my whole life. But I’m energised, when I’m… with you, I think.

I feel the same way. Those unexplained things, I think I know them, too.

This is all so sudden. But at the same time…

The Lopunny saw the quick rise and fall of Amber’s breast as she struggled to contain that inferno.

It’s a product of our lifetimes. Even if we read time differently. To me, it's almost as if I've known you, some aspect of you, all along.

Sounds like empathy. Reluctant but sincere, the friend squeezed the Braixen’s paw and continued, Perhaps the next time we would meet, you should sleep.

But… if I sleep, then how can I see you?

I suppose you’d have to meet me in a dream.

That’s a lovely thought! But how can I fall asleep, with you residing in my mind, keeping me awake at night?

The Lopunny giggled, stirring her ears as she shyly turned her face aside. Oh, stop.

Heh. Would you like to sleep, tonight? If you could?

No, I’d much rather be with you. Even then, your health is more important than honouring me with your company, Amber.

What about a compromise, then?

The friend turned back to the Braixen. Compromise?

We could try and figure out our sleep, together!

Fluffy brows arched so high, they almost receded completely from view, chocolate eyes widening in silent astonishment.

W-wait, Amber spluttered, realising her awkward phrasing moments too late, gesturing erratically with one snowy paw whilst the other remained firmly interwoven with her friend’s. That’s not what… I… I was… I wasn’t…

The Lopunny placed her free paw over her heart.

Shit! Sorry!

That’s… quite alright. Don’t apologise, remember?

I’m not a pervert! Please, don’t think of me as a pervert!

I don’t. Truly. I wouldn’t like you if I though such a thing of you.

Oh, thank god. I only… I meant to say we could… sleep side-by-side? In the same place? And we could wake up to… each other’s face? After figuring out how to sleep at all?

Ah, yes. That sounds...

Better? Is that… better?

Um. Yeah.

I mean, like, so long as I’m awake in time to get back, here, before Jason notices I was ever gone, it… We could… Maybe?

Goodness, Amber. I’m…

The Braixen wanted to slap herself. How could she be so stupid, so crude?

Seeking composure, failing somewhat, her friend finished, in a small voice, by murmuring, Okay, into the space between them.

Amber, who had almost chewed her paw in her anxiety, perked hopefully at that. Okay?

Okay, the Lopunny repeated, smiling again, though that smile was somehow more complicated than before.

They took some more time to disentangle, to part their ways. So much time, considering how little of it was left.

The Braixen left giddy, skipping.

Her friend tugged at her chest as she limped along, alone, with the very same paw that still held that phantom warmth, that softness, unable to still the roaring within.

* * *

Rolling over slowly, Jason pressed his nose to Amber’s cheek and found she wasn’t damp, this morning. She smelled like she always did and she was as soft as he remembered and she was perfectly warm. He almost forgot how strange she’d been, lately, cuddling up to his sole comfort in his world, her arms wrapping around his neck.

She was awake and quickly set to work lapping at the knots in his greying hair. Forgetting a comb caused his own grooming to suffer, too.

“Mmmph.”

She could still feel it, though – her friend’s larger paw, interweaving within her own. And the Braixen could still picture it – the Lopunny’s smiling face, chocolate eyes, all expressing such bittersweet gratitude. And maybe something else. Something more exciting.

In the past, it would've been called wrong. Likened to wrongness.

Jason drew a hand over Amber’s ribcage, counting the bones, until they’d need to get up to take advantage of the day.

There weren’t many days left.

* * *

Eros was allowed to entertain himself, as were his siblings, without much supervision so long as they did no harm without sufficient cause. They could defend themselves, but as far as was reasonable, they were not to use lethal force.

The Decidueye, trusting their man would be safe for some minutes alone, so long as he didn’t wander too far from their camp, took to the skies, soaring silently overhead. Eros was a marvellous bird, able to surge at astounding speeds despite his impressive size, and the beating of his wings produced barely a whisper. However, he preferred to drag himself slowly through the air, almost hovering at times, his luscious feathers stirred as he gazed upon the grounded world, eyes shielded from the glare of the sun by his hood, his excellent vision following the goings-on below wherever there was an opening in the forest canopy, the rest shrouded in lush, shifting green.

Gregory was contemplating a modest pile of faeces, trying to identify its source without referring to his notes. He tended to record the strangest and most mundane things, almost obsessive at times. So was his love for beasts.

Oh, for the love of god, please don’t touch or taste it.

Thankfully, the man did neither of those things, rising again to hurry over and investigate claw markings on a tree root, thus the Decidueye, satisfied, flew on.

Eros had flown these skies often and knew the lay of the land, even when within the trees themselves, forgoing the sky to walk upon the earth. He followed silver shimmers, the insinuation of a vein of water, and soon came upon the other camp in a neighbouring clearing. He’d scouted this campsite days ago, initially investigating to ensure these were not poachers, hunters, litterers.

There was a Braixen that seemed drunk, sometimes, judging by the way she stumbled about, disoriented, and she was accompanied by her big, hairy man, built a bit like an Ursaring, albeit with a far cuddlier disposition. Quite harmless. Although to find a man and a Braixen alone, together, far from the judgment of civilisation, was quite scandalous. Amusing, even. And then intriguing, when the Braixen started to sneak away at nights, answering a call that came from a beast not even Eros had yet seen, so elusive it was, simply crying from within the forest. A cry for companionship, finally answered.

Thus the Decidueye had visited a few times more over the course of the days that followed. And he’d followed the Braixen, but it was hard to witness what she was doing, who she was meeting with, as even Eros could not see through the density of the trees. Some night, his curiosity would likely overcome him, necessitating that he land in a high branch to observe, and as always, without being noticed.

Likely, the tame Braixen was going to flirt with another, wild Braixen, something of a forbidden affair, perhaps.

Except the voices were different.

But how could they be? What possessed a beast to answer another, of a different kind?

Gregory had not been able to find any Braixen, tame or wild, for years, now. They were native to this forest, likely captured for pleasure or pain, their handsome bodies, their silky fur.

The Decidueye wished he had the words to tell his human of this curiosity.

“It’s nutritious.” Meanwhile, Gregory kneeled and offered one of his homemade cookies to a sceptical Oddish. “And tasty.” As if to demonstrate, he took a dainty bite. “Mmm! S’good! Try one!”


End file.
